Hyperdimension Neptunia: Eternal Prototype

by CFW Gamereaper

Set after the events of MK2, competing gazes have sickened the world of Gamindustry. With the new CPUs few and far between with their own problems, Nepgear has little she can do. In exchange for a little more purpose in his life, a solemn Coliseum underdog pairs up with the downtrodden goddess, aiming to help put Gamindustry back together.

21. Fear The Future

Greetings everyone, I've returned for another little update! Going off the rails again, getting a look at a different pair of heroes. Almost like a little DLC adventure of sorts! An exploration with the little known Valve into Ruination to see what's changed, and maybe a lesson or two in friendship and compassion. Or a bunch of explosions. Yeah, let's stick with that, lots of explosions.

---

Waves split and breeze fled as a slick, ship of modern white steel glided over the sickly, green ocean. Gripping a soaked metal handrail, Valve used her free hand to hold her hair out of the way, dust and dirt blending in the with the shoulder-length mess. A sole woman piloted the slick speedboat, decorated in a cloud-white blouse and skirt that flowed like the water they flew across, lined with frills and ribbons like a two-part mage's robe designed for the sole purpose of fulfilling the Neptunia standard of cute or sexy. Staring off in the far distance, Valve could see a faint white Lowee with her silvery eyes, thinking to herself, "I don't remember that place anymore."

Before leaving the city of marble white structures and clustered snow, it seemed like everyone in the city got suddenly suspicious, and not just of her. Something spooked the people there, and in turn, Valve could see a strange life-force fade from their eyes, like their brains were in the process of switching gears. She wanted so much to wait for the arrival of Ram and Rom, just to make sure they were alright. But with everyone holstering the same gaping, shifty stare, the only thing that almost stayed Valve's feet was her concern for when the twins did return.

"You still awake, m'lady?"

With eyes peering over her shoulder, Valve replied distantly, "Guess so. And would you quit with the formal crap? You've known me for years, Ark."

Arkane stifled an easily audible chuckle, replying, "As you wish, Valvina."

"Close enough," Valve replied with a roll of her eyes, tasting the bitter sea spray tainted by Ruinations' leaked chemicals. "You sure you don't mind taking me out this far?"

"Please, my magic's strong enough. A simple boat's just more practice under my belt," replied Arkane, hands resting firmly on a pair of neon-colored crystal balls mounted next to the red leather seat she rested at. Without a traditional motor pushing the boat forward, the only ambiance was the boat splitting the sea.

Giving a subtle shrug, Valve went back to watching the shimmering nation behind them slowly vanish into the horizon. Mutant birds of wicked designs would flutter in and out of her vision, Valve clutching the grip of her rifle, reminded of her anxiety for the fight with every innocent, passing creature. She wouldn't dare waste ammo on simple seagulls or water striders, but she still waited for the day they'd become a threat. Of course, she wouldn't hesitate to defend Arkane in the process.

With a soft voice like a singing nymph, Arkane called back fondly, "It's been a long time, dear. I haven't heard anything of your since you rescued me from Aether."

"Yeah, sorry for the sudden notice. Hate to call you up just to cash in that favor."

"It's no worry, dearie," said Arkane, casting a calm smile over her shoulder, "What've you been doing these last couple of years?"

"Mainly Guild work for Lastation. I'm the leader of the Lastation Guild Extreme Operations Unit. Spend most of my days cleaning up Ruination, conducting long-term travel, and helping Uni and Kei any time that I can. Got a few recon quests lined up for Ruination right now that I can remember."

Arkane took in her words quietly, speaking only when Valve asked what she was up to.

"I've been doing something similar, but I go freelance on some work down in Aether," she paused, a hint of fear in her voice, "But, enough about me. Might I ask why were you so eager to leave Lowee? It seems like such a pleasant place."

Giving her gun the good ol' look-over for the fourth time that voyage, Valve replied, "Not anymore. Something's wrong and it's got me on edge."

"Dearie, you're always on edge. You should really settle down sometime, take in life in a calm village, maybe get a love life. It certainly wouldn't hurt any."

"The quiet life ain't quite for me, Ark. I can't just grab a guy and get a second life like you did."

The quiet boat made a sudden jerk as it mowed down a mutant water spider, Arkane uttering quietly, "Poor thing..."

"How is Max anyways?" asked Valve, eyes and voice aimed elsewhere while her words pushed forward the conversation.

"Oh, I'm surprised you know of our affiliation," said Arkane, pink spreading across her face quietly.

Eyes shifting to the approaching shore far ahead, marking the waste and junk of Ruination and Valve's starting path towards Lastation, Valve replied with little vigor, "I work with him a lot, what with him being Beth's father. Plus he still owes me for...well, shit, a lot of things. Mainly keeping Beth out of trouble."

"He's doing well for himself," Arkane commented. She gave a soft giggle and continued, "Beth's a little jealous that she has to share the spotlight with me too now."

Valve offered her own phlegm-ridden chuckled, coughing a bit afterward. The taste of toxic air still worked her up, but it wasn't anything new for her. "Man's got a bit of a harem going on. Just as well. Someone in Gamindustry had to get all the excitement. Never a dull moment with Beth there."

As the boat started to slow, the rustled waves tossed the boat around a little as the floating steel vehicle twisted elegantly to the side, docking with a crude steel platform jutting out from a pile of scrap. It was good enough for Arkane, and she trusted it would keep her boat docked. With eyes quickly surveying the span of grey earth and colorful scrap piles, Valve helped tie the boat to the platform with a sturdy chain. Arkane stepped up from her chair slowly, popping the bones of an aging back with every subtle movement. Valve could easily see her shining black hair that rested just above her shoulders, folding inwards and away from her ears. As she stepped forward, the bone charm necklace she wore rattled and shook, synchronized with the clanking of her shortsword, hanging from the frilly, decorative belt on her skirt.

"Ladies first," Valve remarked, beckoning her forward with gun in hand. Safety was off, but Valve kept the gun pointed away from her or the boat. Looking out to the shore, Valve could see a familiar face coated in speckled dirt, toting a massive backpack that almost trumped her own torso. Her makeshift armor of rusted plates and screws scattered around her body, a blue undershirt and heavy cargo jeans hiding below the numerous rusted plates. Valve commented, "Speak of the devil."

"Looks like we have more company ahead," said a cheery Arkane, taking the first steps off the boat and towards her lumbering sister. Valve immediately cocked her rifle, approaching their teammate with solemn steps and eyes on the surroundings. Every step forward agitated the creaking platform, Valve paranoid that the thing would give away any second, hastening her step ahead of Arkane. Shouting towards the bumbling girl, Valve asked Beth, "A little overencumbered there?"

Beth replied with a simple wave, donning a bright smile upon seeing Valve. A smile that faded a little once she saw Arkane with her. Still, with what little power she had left, she ran over to Valve and leapt onto her like a child missing its' parent. "I missed you!" she called childishly.

Crushed under the weight of Beth and all the junk she had stored in her seemingly bottomless brown traveler's pack, Valve wheezed, "Get..off...can't...breathe!"

Waddling around on her stomach and slowly crushing Valve's spine, Beth cried out, "I can't get up! I'm too heavy!"

Arkane came to the rescue, rolling over Beth with a distressed sigh. "You really shouldn't carry all that weight on you dearie, your back's going to go out if you keep doing that!"

"And here she goes," Beth sighed with a roll of her eyes, "You're one to talk, grandma! Your back's already more broken than my HUD!"

Valve, drawing a hasty breath, stood back up while popping her own back several times. "Seriously, why do you carry all of that extra crap?"

Tapping an impatient foot, Arkane replied for Beth, "It's so she can keep making those scrap abominations littering the backyard."

"They aren't abominations! That's my house!" Beth shot back fiercely.

Giving another annoyed sigh with eyes aimed at Beth, Arkane said with a soft voice, "Go store your inventory in the footlocker on the ship. I'll take it home with me."

With a little more life in her eyes, Beth waddled over to the nearby ship, struggling to keep her balance while hastily ascending the tower of rust leading to the docking platform. Valve, watching the eager girl only a year or two younger than herself, scanned the chain to make sure it was secure. From where she was, she could see the ship's name, "Dreadful Wail", painted on the side with a chrome-like silver.

Arkane on the other hand, was fixated on something else entirely, watching Beth's ragged clothing cling loosely to her dirty body, "Look at that poor girl. She's a right mess! Her father's going to throw a fit when he sees her like this."

"Go easy on the kid, she's just out here trying to make a living for herself like I am," Valve replied firmly.

Closed eyes and a softly shaking head followed Arkane's worried voice, "I understand that, but that still doesn't stop us from worrying about her being out in this wasteland."

"You think I don't worry about her too? I'll keep an eye on her, just like always."

Valve said that simple phrase with eyes glued to the stiff girl as she scurried along the platform and down the pile of waste. A quick rumble from the earth send the girl forward, tripping and bumbling down to the grey earth, the rumbling revealing a scrap-iron scorpion prying it's overgrown claws from it's rusty home to fend off the innocent invader. With a screech and a hiss, the scorpion's tail raised high, a pike of orange and red aimed for Beth's heart. Valve raised her rifle just in time to see Arkane effortlessly teleport to the beast, stabbing her shortsword square into the beast's eye. Beth started crawling back away from the beast as it thrashed about, Arkane finishing it off by leaving a deep gash down the creature's torso, spilling a viscous goo as it let out a final death rattle.

Getting back up quickly, Beth dusted herself off, still stepping back from the metallic scorpion. Arkane approached her and said with a puffed-up face, "Bethie, you really need to be more careful! You could've been really hurt had I not been there!"

"Valve would've protected me," replied Beth.

Valve stepped back and said, "Don't even get me wrapped up in this, this is between you two."

The expression on Arkane's face softened a little, but her brows were still furrowed. Her voice kept it's sincerity as she asked, "Will you please just come home? I think you've been out here enough as of late. Your father's worried, as are the others."

"Not just yet!" replied Beth, tightening her grip on her backpack straps, "There's one more place I want to loot."

Arkane watched the eager Beth look out towards a tower in the distance that glowed red. Arkane's cheeks reddened slightly and she sheepishly stepped before Valve, asking her quietly, "I hate to ask but could you-"

"You don't even have to ask," Valve interjected, "I'll keep an eye on her."

"Thank you so much, I really appreciate this. I'll make it up to you-"

"Relax. This one's on the house. Don't worry about it."

Valve stepped away from Arkane and towards Beth, who viewed the distant red tower fondly in the background, gazing at it like a child that had just seen its' first amusement park. Hypersensitive ears could hear Arkane leave for her boat as she approached Beth. "Looks like it's you and me kiddo."

"Are you really coming with me? I could really use some help looting, but I've been taking favors from you left and right as of late."

"I sure as hell don't trust her to her own devices. She's still a rookie, and someone needs to look out for her. I'm going this way anyways," Valve thought to herself, quickly eyeing over Beth for some form of weapon. The only thing different that she could spot was a small black bracer on the top of Beth's wrist, covered in runic etchings with a tinge of green blood scattered on the edge. Speaking aloud, Valve called to her while walking ahead, "It'd be weird for you not to be in debt to the Valvina Mafia."

Beth kept up right behind Valve, happily gripping the straps of her backpack. "Looks like I've got the Don's favor today."

"That depends, are you at least packing heat this time? Last time I had to make you a pencil shiv during a gunfight."

After tripping over a rusted steel beam jutting out from the scrap heaps around them, Beth gripped the black bracer from her wrist and pressed a button in the middle that revealed a trio of sharpened blades, turning an otherwise innocent bracer into a well-sharpened shuriken.

There was around five different flaws that Valve could see with the little bladed boomerang. It wasn't effective, but to her, it was a step in the right direction for the kid. "What is that thing?"

"I think it's called a glaive."

"Uh, I could've sworn a glaive was a sword on a stick?"

Beth gave a dubious shrug, showing off the 'enchantment' on the blade by tossing it at a nearby junk pile. The blade, richocheting off of various steel beams and brick ruins, left a sequence of metallic clanking in its' wake before returning to Beth's arm.

While Beth was still impressed with the blade's ability, Valve wasn't as amused, commenting firmly, "Are you trying to attract the undead denizens again?"

"Oh, they'll be fine. We're both armed. Plus I didn't make anything explode this time."

"And I can bet a good sum of credits you haven't even hit anyone with that thing yet to see what happens," Valve thought to herself. Rolling her eyes, she asked, "Where exactly are you going again?"

Pointing a dirty finger at the distant red tower, Beth replied, "The big red tower in the distance. Can't miss it. I've got a ride too, so it won't take long to get there."

It took only a couple of seconds for Valve to calculate the distance and approximate time it would take to get there. It wasn't a new structure for her, she'd passed it many times before. Before she could respond, Beth held her chest firmly, crouching down with Valve doing the same instantly. Sweaty hands cocking her gun quietly, Valve asked, "What is it?"

Using the same dirty finger, Beth pointed to a floating robot with three eyes examining a nearby junk pile with interest. Valve could hear the thrusters on the machine from where they were, tuned in to every whir and motor churning underneath its worn, green chassis.

"That thing's gonna spot my vehicle and scrap it if we don't do something," said Beth, taking out her glaive and popping it open with a soft clank.

It took Beth only a second to launch her glaive at the machine, Valve choosing not to say a word and let the scene unfold, keeping a firm grip on her rifle's loose trigger just in case. The blade dug its way into the machine, shoving it forcefully to the ground without a hint of a fight. The electronic life faded from the machine with a wicked crackle of electricity as it rolled to the bottom of the nearby hill. Beth cried out with joy, synchronized with the sound of gained XP chiming from her glitchy HUD. Just about to step in to retrieve her glaive, Valve took her turn to shove Beth back, stating firmly, "I wouldn't get near that thing!"

Two seconds later, the machine abruptly exploded with the power of a nuke, flinging unwell earth and spreading the taste of poisonous water around the blast radius. Valve's finely tuned HUD picked up on the radiation lingering around already, keeping Beth back for the few seconds it took the radiation to dissipate. Once at ground zero, they found that the body had completely vanished save for a glitchy arm still peering up from the ground, spazzing out as Beth hastily rushed forward to it. By the time she got there, the ground devoured the machine into it's earthy soil. "What the hell?! Why did that happen?!"

Valve ran her hand across the unfiltered soil, stating grimly, "Yeah, looks like the body no-clipped completely through the ground. Me thinks you aren't getting your toy back."

"That's the third time this month! I spent good money on that..."

"And it looks like you get to spend even more on a new weapon," Valve sassed, "And next time, try to pick a weapon you can actually hold on to."

Valve looked over to where Beth was only to find an empty space. Off in the distance was the sidetracked Beth, examining a concrete military bunker. She'd scoot aside a few rocks away from the rusty steel door, scattering oversized cockroaches that sent Beth reeling back. Again trotting off calmly through the maze of bent steel beams and the occasional charred corpse of an aging car or truck, Valve asked, "Do you ever stay put for more than five minutes?"

"That's a negative Twitchy. Now help me get this door open, there's loot in there!"

Beth didn't even wait for Valve before trying to force open the door, planting one foot on barren earth and the other on chipped concrete. Without a word said, Valve hesitantly aimed her rifle at the door's hinges. A duo of bullets popped out of her sleek barrel, the sound of clanking metal subdued by the door falling to the ground, flinging more of that rancid water around and sending out a deep roar in its wake.

Valve waved a dirty, gloved hand in front of her face to fend off the nasty water, commenting to herself, "Yup, pretty sure everyone in a five mile radius just heard that."

"It'll be fine, no worries!" Beth shot back, rushing into the dark military base with only the clouded light of day to guide her. Dusty computers rested in the corners with their scrap guts exposed for the world to take, lockers and skeletons being their only company in their concrete tomb.

With a soft click, Valve turned on the mounted flashlight of her weapon, scanning the moldy interior quickly. "Let's make this fast."

Rummaging loudly through lockers and crates, Beth hoisted a list of junk, all long abandoned with nobody but her to claim as their own. Scrap cans, screwdrivers, gas cans, if it even looked remotely useful, it went into Beth's backpack. Continuing to scan the area, Valve saw no decent weapons for Beth to use. Normally she'd loan Beth her SMGs like she always did, but they were with Uni at the moment getting outfitted with a few of Lastations' latest mods. Valve wasn't just holding her rifle, she was officially holding Beth's life as well.

"No respawns here. Just life or death," Valve always told her. It stood to reason why Max and Arkane were worried about their curious family member. While Valve still kept that paranoid front up, Beth was the only one that knew why she really was that way all the time. It was the reason Valve stuck her neck out so much for the girl.

With her flashlight still watching the anxious raider, Valve quietly whispered, "I still don't understand how you ended up the oldest of the bunch."

Beth gasped and loudly claimed, "This terminal still works!"

The only thing she could see the terminal wire connect to was a strongdoor stationed next to them, showing only a hint of rust and discolor in Valve's sparse light. There wouldn't be any shooting down the locks, not that Valve even wanted to try. "Somehow I don't think we should be messing with that."

"Should be fine. It's not even locked," Beth replied, going right back to the terminal once it booted up.

"Feel like there's a reason for that," Valve remarked, stepping back from the strong door with her gun raised. Looking down the dim reflex sight, the sole red dot aimed squarely at head-level towards the door, Valve braced herself with every echo of the keyboard she heard.

The automatic locks on the door sighed as they released, Beth stepping back with a forward smile and glistening eyes watching the door pry itself open at the will of the terminal. Once the door slid open, moving aside pebbles and dust, a gaze of sheer red jutted out, Beth's smile exchanged for a look of terror. Valve said nothing as she shoved down Beth away from the door. A stream of bullets spewed forward, shredding the steel of broken computers. With only the taste of dirt in her mouth and the lingering scent of gunpowder fueling her adrenaline, Valve immediately forced up Beth and shouted a sole word before fleeing for the door. "Run!"

Beth didn't look back, making a hasty exit out of the bunker, slouched a bit from her backpack's added weight. While Beth hastily jogged up the hill, Valve stayed behind for a brief second. Stored adrenaline fueled her rush to close up the bunker with a nearby slab of concrete. Refusing to drop her weapon, she tossed as much nearby scrap as she could in the way before catching up with Beth. Scars laced her hands, the poison of rust meshing with blood that ran as fast as she did. Head soaked in sweat, trigger soaked with blood, Valve still kept her aim centered toward the bunker door, only turning away to see Beth's scrap-iron dune buggy still struggling to fire up.

Frantically turning the key with the motor sputtering in response, Beth cried out, "It's not starting!"

"You don't say?!" Valve shot back angrily, still aiming through the steel ribcage covering the car's cockpit. A shaking of the chassis signaled no motor's starting sans the engine of destruction wheeling out from the bunker, red gaze taking only a moment to spot the duo. Valve opened fire just as the buggy grumbled to life. "Go, go, go!"

Beth didn't have to be told twice, flooring it the moment she heard the machine spring to life. The car's roar of life was met with the whir of a firing minigun, Valve aiming when she could for the robot's sensors. The front of the car was already pelted with bullet holes as it took off full speed towards the death machine. Valve clutched onto the rollcage with a sweaty, bloody grip, eyes widened and teeth clenched for when they'd crash through the war bot. The buggy's rugged tires smacked only into one of the machine's wheeled legs, splitting it off and flinging it down the hill they rushed down. Valve looked behind with her gun pivoting the same way, firing at it's corpse that now rested on the brown earth. The red glare still flickered menacingly as it took its Last Stand with stride, firing a sole rocket ahead of them. The explosive arced downward too quickly, Valve missing it with her spread of gunfire.

"Brace for impact!"

"Brace for what?" asked Beth over the raging motor.

Ahead of them the earth rocketed up quickly and a stream of girders and junk spewed out onto the road ahead of them. Fleeing from the light of the roaring explosion was a mess of scrap that intended to come down with them. "Brake, brake, brake!" shouted Valve, gripping onto the rollcage with one hand and gripping her gun with the other. Beth jerked the leather wheel as hard as she could, the tires trapped in a spew of unsettled earth, taking their ride for an even more hectic one. The feeling in Valve's stomach went from uneasy to floating once the buggy went airborn, flying through the sky, visiting shrapnel and metal in the radiation-soaked sky.

Gravity played a harsh role in turning the buggy several times in midair, bouncing their machine off of soiled earth and broken complexes on a journey to the bottom of a sunken city. Like limited edition bobbleheads, Beth and Valve had their brains rattled around the metallic ribcage of their car, the steel bending inwards with every crash into the scenery. Momentum made sure they reached the bottom with enough force to break apart the latter half of the vehicle, oil and gas bleeding out from the fractured spine of metal tubes that once fueled their furious engine. The only sound left was the moaning of Valve and Beth, the skin of their heads tore open and bruised in several spots, Valve still bleeding from the cuts on her hands and Beth bleeding from new ones that formed along her arms and legs.

The first one out was Valve, as this wasn't the first time she had to crawl out of a crashed vehicle. Pulling out her rifle next, she saw Beth stumbling out of the dented-in driver's seat. With dirt coating her face and her leather armor ripped up in a few parts, she gave a cry of distress as she stood up, "Man, id's gonna be pissed! We worked on this thing for weeks!"

Holding her hands out to the side with her rifle still in hand, Valve widened her eyes and moaned, "What? Not even gonna ask if I'm okay?"

Beth raised a brow and stated, "Valve, it's gonna take a lot more than a car crash to kill your ass."

Dropping her hands to her side she replied, "Fair enough. I can't really argue with you."

Beth pulled out a small med-kit, opening the zipper and extracting what she had left from it. "It's all I've got, but it should help keep us up to par. Our journey's far from over."

"I hear that, least you finally took my advice to keep one of those with you at all times," Valve replied, taking some disinfectant for her hands. Valve didn't even bother with bandages for her hands, figuring it would just make it harder for her to shoot her rifle. While reloading her weapon, she looked up at the massive incline, coated in random junk piles and towering structures looming over like gods of ruin. "Guess we aren't doing any backtracking on this level."

Looking down at the crumpled buggy, Beth remarked, "Looks like we're going forward the hard way too."

"Can't repair it at all?"

A gaze cast at the incline right behind Valve revealed the buggy's rear axle stuck up above, out of arm's length. "You're the one that attracts weird glitches and bugs. I'd think you'd have enough good karma to make that work in our favor for once and toss down that axle at the least."

"Oh, I'm sorry. You make it sound like I have control over these weird game-breaking spasms Max rigged my HUD to perform!" Beth fired back. She turned to what little road was in front of her, sighing and raising a bandaged hand to her aching head as she continued, "Not like we can go much further on wheels anyways."

Up ahead, where the air constricted with a manufactured poison and the earth turned ill colors, the road ended where a sea of lucid green began. Valve didn't dare get near it, commenting from afar, "What is that? When the hell did that even get there? I've been through these parts for years and I've never seen something like that."

"Sea of toxic goo from what I've learned from Lady Black Heart. Her weird little secretary tells me some idiots killed off Tri-Shrex and, well, this is what the corpse left behind," replied Beth.

That was certainly news to Valve, news that made her question if killing that behemoth was really worth the effort. Or, nevermind the effort, cashing in a very valuable commodity of favors from Kei.

Hands on her hips in frustration, Beth continued, "And at one point I had a safe path across this mess. Looks like someone took that out as well."

Looking up at sequence of steel beams jutting out from some rotting ruins submerged under Tri-Shrex's filth, Beth raised her hand to the inquisitive expression on her face.

"You think maybe we can swing across the beams there?"

Valve replied with a scoff, "Does it look like I have a bionic arm that shoots grappling hooks?"

That was the cue for Valve to put together one of her famous makeshift plans. Scouting the area, she saw a nearby building on its last wrought-iron leg. It was a good eight stories and looked like it would easily reach the other side of the caustic stream. "Think that building is our ticket across. Thing is, we're gonna need some high-yield explosives, and I don't know about you, but my grenade machine gun is at home."

Beth joined her friend in scouring the area with their eyes, picking out ideas one by one that hid amongst the ruin and scrap. "What about a car bomb? I think some of these old cars could work."

"Nah, too plot convenient. Most of these cars probably don't even move from their scenery."

"What about blowing up the rest of the buggy?" Beth asked, casting a gaze toward a still-turning tire loosely moving in the sickly air.

Again, Valve shook her head. "You didn't see the pipes? Oil and gas are already drained from it, won't explode at this rate."

Breathing an enlongated sigh, Beth ruffled her own hair in frustration, Valve reminding her again that it was her own fault for getting side-tracked again.

"Don't think our karma's gonna help us find a sequence break," Valve stated, shrugging with an indifferent expression, "I think I see a metro entrance over there. Probably the way we need to go. Should be some explosives down there, or at least a path leading to some."

No arguments from Beth led Valve to start the journey, eyes focused firmly on the skittering, glowing ocean bugs working their way across the neon ocean. Valve saw no discernible threat on them, but still kept her rifle held firmly to her chest. Eyes zipped around the environment, even if she could tell they were in a safe zone for the moment. With her rifle, her source of protection, clutched to herself, she looked down at the passive, cheery Beth, thinking again to herself, "No respawns, only life or death."

Keeping her voice down, Valve thought aloud, "Really makes you wonder if Uni can someday fix this place up."

"I hear she's been starting this whole digital game streaming...renting...thing to help pay some of the expenses already."

With an air of surprise, Valve asked, "Really? How's that going for her?"

Beth, shaking her head softly, said, "Not well, at first anyways. She was overcharging for them and the people there weren't very happy about it. Then again, she also refused to tell them where their money was going to be going. She's lowered the price and it looks like things are getting better, but I dunno. Seems like it's gonna be another bad business venture for her."

Stopping dead in her tracks, Valve let a mutated centipede slither by, refusing to make any contact with it or piss it off. A tinge of fear was plastered on her face, Beth taking it upon herself to tease the frightened Valve by tickling her back. She'd almost gotten slugged in the face had Valve not contained herself.

"You'd totally know what that's like, wouldn't you?" commented Beth, wearing a displeased expression. The way her eyes peered over at Valve placed a hidden guilt on her dirty, jacket-clad shoulders.

Valve rolled her eyes and replied, "Look, the idea was good on paper. Your friends make solid gun mods, I thought I could make a quick buck selling them."

"Correction: You didn't think at all! You lost a crap-ton of money and I lost a lot of customers because of that!"

"Slight oversight. I didn't think they'd get that pissed off! I figure it'd give us both a little extra spending money." Valve innocently proclaimed.

Beth helped her push aside a vending machine that blocked the darkened entrance of the metro, a cracked stairwell of dim concrete revealing itself. "They didn't even get half of the profits!"

"Okay, so I made a little miscalculation on the profit side of things," Valve replied with a soft shrug.

Bitter and annoyed, Beth shot back, "It was a mistake. And I can't buy back trust."

Taking the lead down the stairs, her footsteps letting out a soft echo, Valve said with her voice hushed, "Sure you can, just give them free mods."

"They were free to begin with, you-"

Valve quickly shot a shaky hand over Beth's mouth, hushing her with a finger on her trigger. When the mouthy girl was silenced, Valve gave her a a raised fist before raising her weapon to her well-trained eye.

Down below, a soft moan echoed to the surface just within hearing range, Valve stepping with fleet feet and her crosshair aimed at head-level with every concrete step she eased down to. Not about to turn on her flashlight yet, she flicked a firm switch near her vibrating firing hand that limited the gun to semi-automatic. The faint, dreary light above illuminated a browned, stained skin with putrid breath as it reached for Valve. It took one fatal shot to silence the rasping creature.

Motioning for Beth's return, she moaned herself, "Freaking zombies. Can't go anywhere in Ruination without more zombies."

Once Beth was beside her fatal friend, she kneeled down to the rotting corpse, poking it quietly with a stick.

Valve swatted aside the branch, rolling her eyes and commenting quietly, "Geez, don't you have any respect for the dead?"

"I do, but the dead stop being dead when they get back up."

"Fair enough," Valve replied, reloading her gun despite only shooting one bullet from it, "Now keep next to me and keep quiet."

Valve clicked on her underbarrel flashlight on her rifle, the shaky blotch of illumanition zipping around from side to side in a paranoid frenzy. Both girls were hunched over, watching the faint spotlight of Valve's underbarrel flashlight illuminate rotting corners and upturned trash scattered along the walkways. Shattered lights left their explosive remains littered along the ground, Valve's faint light reflecting softly. Stopping immediately, Valve ushered Beth around the glass, stepping calmly around it with her light focused firmly below.

A skittering ahead of them earned Valve's immediate, strained attention, firing with the speed of a machine gun at the nearby noise, shouting all the while like a drugged up lunatic, "Zombie!"

When the noise stopped, she did as well, taking in furious breaths, shaking like a leaf on a glitchy, malrendered tree. With eyes widened, Beth stepped away from Valve and loudly proclaimed, "It was a rat Valve! A rat! The hell happened with being quiet?"

"I panicked."

"No shit!"

The moans of rising corpse flooded the far-reaching hallways, shuffling replacing the ambiant noise. Valve took a step back, shoving Beth back in the process. Rifle raised, she could see shambling masses of undead flesh making their way out of every nook and cranny available. With a soft splatter of blood, Valve erased an enemy approaching from the bathrooms, then another from the nearby stairwell. Adrenaline pumped in her every vein, ever watchful for movement.

"Stay close to me!" Valve commanded, walking forward with her gun still hunting for enemies. Every decomposing head that popped up over the distant staircase leading to their hallway was met with the business end of dull lead. Quick skirmishes started to quickly run through Valve's ammo supply, her frequent reloading calling Beth's attention.

"Should we run?"

"Nowhere else to go but forward. Just keep coming with me and we'll be fine," Valve replied quickly, wiping off a splotch of blood from her trigger before going back to firing.

Every corpse that compiled at the end of their road was met with XP and more subtle moans, Beth's only comfort being the flash of Valve's rifle accumulating kills. Staring down the last of the undead, Valve let loose the final round in her clip, striking true on the creature. With discordant breath and unnerved nerves, she refused to lower her weapon, moving forward with her disturbed friend right behind.

"Are they gone?" asked Beth quietly.

"Quiet. We're not done yet," commanded Valve, stepping quickly down the stairs leading to the train platform.

It took a mere three steps and Valve checking her six for Beth to vanish from sight completely. Spewing profanities hushed to her own self, she looked around the dust and mold of the train station for where the girl went. Quietly, she called, "Beth? Where the hell are you?"

Jittery hands and frantic eyes cooperated in the dark search for Beth. A hiss rattled out from behind her, her reaction speed being just quick enough to pull her leg of faded skin from the jaws of an angry zombie. She put a quick bullet in its head before turning around to greet the faded, jerky-like skin that would be quicker than her to dig into its prey. Valve earned a nasty gash in her cheek from the feral creature, angrily slotting a healthy dose of lead.

Ignoring her wounds in favor for the search for her friend, she called her name out again. "Beth! Where are-"

She stopped when she heard the distant static.

"Shit, gotta find her quick!"

Viewing the ticket booth, all she saw was the mangled face of another zombie trying to escape the reinforced glass of its makeshift containment cell. Wiping warm blood from her face, she used her stronger arm to guide her shaking flashlight, scouting the area quickly. She could see a faint glow towards the stationed train. Moving on to the metallic, high-speed coffin with a fleet foot, she finally caught a glance of Beth inside, using a dim match to guide her picky hands.

"What the hell were you thinking running off like that?" Valve whispered harshly.

"There was loot. I had a moment of weakness," Beth replied calmly, stuffing her backpack full of junk all the while.

Before anything else could be said, Valve turned off her flashlight, threw down the match, and extinguished it, hearing the sound of static clear as day. The steel train swayed firmly as her least favorite Ruination wanderer boarded the station, looking not for loot, but for flesh. Holding her hand over Beth's mouth, she held perfectly still alongside her friend. The Glitches were persistent in their hasty search, peering into the darkened with their faceless heads, scanning and sniffing, not always in that order. With burly hands clasped over the window frames, Valve could see the textures deform into a primitive, 8-bit state. Valve could see a set of three hands jostling their hideout, three sets of hands that would soon depart like the train once did, taking off for the nearby zombie corpses, quietly examining them for data.

Slipping her combat knife from it's torn sheath, Valve took every step with caution, slow as she could be. She commanded Beth to stay behind for the moment. Taking a dreaded step onto the station platform, she froze still when the Glitches stopped. The dusty air stood still with Valve breathing none of it in, holding perfectly still for the tense three seconds it took for the Glitches to go about their business, moving from corpse to corpse, away from Valve. With the only nearby light being a flickering ceiling fixture on the other end of the station, Valve scrutinized the immediate area for some form of escape route. The only thing she could see was a doorway leading into a nondescript room, or at least, a room she couldn't see well enough to identify. She didn't go into the Lastation metro much, but she remembered from youth that there usually was a way into the control booth from the platform.

"Lights are still on, wouldn't hurt to see if the train is too," Valve thought to herself. With silent step after silent step, she edged over to the nearby room, Beth paying close attention to her from the train's shattered windows.

As much as Valve wanted to turn on her flashlight, she didn't want to risk getting spotted, taking as much of a risk wandering around in in the dark. Constricted, tense airways pumped a subtle, suppressed breath into her lungs, shifting forward quietly towards the doorway. Embraced by darkness, the depths of the control room manifested as a shrill cry, broken feet forcing a long-dead corpse forward to Valve. Her heart froze like she did, and before her instinct could throw her into the room where a glimpse of safety could be had, she was shoved into a nearby bench of rusted green, static flooding her hearing and pain flooding her spine.

Hand numb from the abundant nervousness and shaking in her body, she forced out a few rounds of ammo from her rifle. Knowing the rounds to pass right through Glitches, she could only try with gasping breath and sweaty palms to flee. Like digital ghosts taking physical form, they approached her with blurred information jittering across their featureless faces, bodies of data angrily forming the fists that would pummel Valve into submission. She could see Beth approaching frantically from behind.

With Beth getting closer and closer, Valve tried to warn her to back away, gasping in pain and wheezing out, "Stay...away..."

The Glitches were the least of her worries. What ended Beth's charge was the zombie that ruined Valve's attempt at stealth in the first place. Forcing down the eager savior, the zombie bit into upper arm, using it's limp body to keep Beth tied to the ground.

"Stop! Get away!"

That sole shout was met with absolute silence. Valve stopped struggling along the ground, the Glitches no longer unsettled dust in their approach, and the zombie's sickening growls ceased. No more blood seeped from Beth's arm, nor did any blood spew from Valve's lacerated cheek. Prying herself out from underneath the anxious zombie, it stayed exactly where it was, as if Beth was still there. Wincing in pain from her arm, she commented, "That's a new one. Still hurts, but useful."

Abusing the convenience, she quickly lit another match and looked for a circuit breaker in the room ahead. Faint darkness lingered as she scouted the room, finally finding the rusty power lever and pulling on it with her good arm. The train's signal lights came on with a flicker, one of the headlights busted. Rushing back outside, Beth ate dirt and dust when she tripped over the levitating zombie. Pulling herself up off that faded, white tiles of the train platform, she was quick to pick up Valve and her gun from the bench, gasping in pain when she tried to use her damaged arm.

As she headed to the train, she could hear the static behind her resume, a flood of new noises appearing as a dire signal to speed up. Once the Glitches caught on to what was happening, they let out a shrill cry of ear-breaking static, making Beth hunch over as she walked, almost falling to her knees while entering the train.

"Train leaving for-" The intercom called, static disrupting the announcement halfway through that complimented the ambiance the Glitches started to add. Sitting on the train's floor, Beth watched the Glitches try to rush into the train, only for the doors to close and the wheels to start spinning with a loud squeal.

"What the hell did you just do?" asked Valve, resting on Beth's lap.

"May have just exploited a bug a little. Just a little," Beth replied with a meager smile. Valve tried to get up, her eye closing sharply as a pain jolted through her back.

Beth rolled her over, Valve complaining in response before getting another sharp sting in her spine. "That should heal you up, along with setting that pretty face of yours right."

"Where'd you get the-" Valve stopped, her back arching fiercely as she cried, "Cold! Very cold!"

"This is why I loot, you know."

"Oh, so should I thank you for healing me or for being a klepto?"

"Both. You'd be bonemeal if I hadn't glitched out like that."

Valve rolled her eyes, finally able to sit upright. The HP bar on her HUD quickly raised and her status ailments were gone. "Beth," she started, feeling the wound on her face disappear at the very touch, "what the hell am I going to do with you?"

After a few moments of silence, Valve got up and looked out of the train's back window. She could faintly see the Glitches still running toward their prey. "I know you like your loot, but what have I told you before about running around out here?"

Beth gave a defeated sigh and replied, "Scout the area, and progress thoroughly and slowly."

"And?"

"Always double-tap corpses."

"And?"

"Carry spare weapons and ammo."

"And?"

Beth's face turned sour as she commented loudly, "I get it! I get it!"

Valve narrowed her own eyes at the rookie, as if judging quietly.

Head lowered with her own eyes of deep grey looking up, Beth replied quietly, just over the clacking of the train's voyage, "I'm sorry."

Shaking her head softly, Valve finally cracked a smile and said, "Don't apologize, just listen and learn. I'm not mad at you."

Valve ended the conversation giving her partner a soft head pat, roughing up her hair even more than it already was, Beth finally showing her own smile. Neither of them knew where the train was going, just that it was making a few wide turns every so often. The soft rumble of the train gliding along the tracks with the occasionally scrape and squeal matched with Valve's unyielding nervous shaking, while it did the opposite for Beth, soothing her raw nerves. Blood still seeped from the wound, staining her blue shirt a dark red that would soon corrupt the underside of her wrought-iron pauldrons.

The ride was taking far too long, but the train couldn't go full speed. Something was wrong with the tires, resulting in the squealing that came from the underside. It would even slow to a grind every couple of miles. "This thing stuck in a loading loop?" Valve thought to herself, peering forward and out of the cracked windshield of the front car, seeing nothing but desolate darkness.

Eyes observed the faded light the overhead lights struggled to emit, looking at the advertisements long past expired. "I remember that," Beth commented, pointing to an ad for the original expansion of Lastation that birthed what was currently Ruination and Aether. The ad featured the former Lady Black Heart, Noire, holding a large sledgehammer, staring off into an enormous black city with a crescent moon above. At the bottom, wrote in a strict, constrained font, was the phrase, "The black of night will forge the way to dawn."

Valve twisted around, her repaired spine cracking loudly as she did. "Feels like centuries ago."

"I really miss Lady Noire. She wouldn't have let this place fall apart like it did."

Contorting her face, Valve shot back, "Uni couldn't have been expected to manage all of this though. She didn't even know that Noire wouldn't have ever returned."

Beth asked with a sudden, accusing voice, "But didn't Uni make this place a wasteland 'cause of her own dumb ideas?"

"Hey, they weren't dumb," Valve countered, stopping a moment before admitting, "Okay, yeah, some of them were dumb ideas, but she was only trying to protect Lastation with good offense and defense. Let's be honest here, once the CPUs vanished, almost everyone was expecting a war to break out."

"Yeah, well pointing guns is a surefire way to start one."

"At least she's trying to make up for it. No, she is making up for it," Valve said firmly, stopping herself as she saw the faint approach of light at the end of the tunnel.

"Looks like our stop's next," commented Beth, leaning forward and taking another look at her bloodied arm.

Valve noticed that the light wasn't quite the same as she thought it would. It was paler, and had a strange color to it. Her face grew tense, and as she approached the front car with a furrowed brow, she could see more clearly what was up ahead. Her tone was as dark as the tunnels as she firmly told Beth, "We need to run and quick."

Beth didn't know what was going on, but trusted Valve's immediate judgment and hopped up, still hunched over from her heavy backpack. As they rushed for the back car, the air started to grow sickly and thick, choking their breaths as they rushed through a mess of rusty doors. Kicking down the final door with her chaffed combat boot, Valve was running down the last car with Beth right behind when the floor under them rattled and jerked, Beth looking forward for a brief second to see the train going off the rails, disappearing into the chasm where the tunnel was destroyed. Valve forced open the last door while the final train cart started to fall. Stiff bones flung her forward as their last stable platform started to flee away from them.

Her scratched hands gripped onto the swaying train track that peered off the edge of the tunnel, Valve holding onto it with one hand and her rifle with the other. "I don't have the strength level to pull my ass up there! Is there anywhere else we can go?"

With eyes gazing down into the lake of toxic goo below, Beth didn't respond. Instead, she watched the train disappear into the depths of the rancid, glowing liquid with wide eyes.

"Beth!"

Snapping her head to the side, she started to search for something they could use to escape, Beth eying a small ventilation shaft peering out of a concrete structure underneath the tunnel. "I don't know where it goes, but there's a ventilation shaft over here!"

Valve contorted her body to the side, sweaty grip on her rifle. Blindfiring it several times, Valve could hear the bullets bouncing off of rusty metal, but amongst them were two louder noises. Those were the sound of the bolts holding up the ventilation filter breaking apart, the filter and cover falling off into the distant pool below, splashing and melting with a fizzy, popping sound that echoed upwards to the rushed duo.

Encouraged to go first and lower on the bar, Beth started to swing the loose rail, inching closer and closer to the vent. Struggling to draw breath and feeling dizzy from the rush, she nearly missed her mark when her bad arm refused to get a grip on the rough lip of the shaft. Beth could taste every drop of sweat that ran down her pale face, forcing her other arm to secure a grip, pulling her body up and inside the dirty vent. It was a tight squeeze, but she fit, and promptly started to venture deeper inside with Valve being next.

Sliding down the rail, Valve was next up to make the jump. With her wounds and back repaired, the jump was simple for her. It didn't keep her from passing a glance to the caustic crevasse below, slowly devouring their would-be transportation, as she pulled herself back up and into the vent. The surface keeping her aloft jolted, the sound of breaking bolts and falling screws prompting Valve to shout ahead, "Beth, go a little faster!"

"I'm trying!" Beth fired back, no longer being cautious of her slowly healing shoulder. Squeezing her body through the limited room of the shaft, she could start hearing the noises of the vent supports breaking bit by bit. Valve could feel her crawling room start to turn vertical as the breaking supports threatened to dump her right back into the sewage.

Another snap followed by a rigid creak sent Valve forward, gripping onto the creases of the shaft when she could feel herself sliding down the chute. The few seconds she had to wait for Beth to move out of the way felt like three long hours, pulling herself up just before the shaft broke, giving the goo another parsel to chew on. She waited patiently to catch her breath, Beth slowing down at the request of her aching muscles.

Valve commented with her voice fleeing down the shaft, "And people wonder why my nerves are frayed."

Bloodshot eyes accompanied a cracked voice as Beth asked, "I don't ever remember Ruination being this dangerous before. Did your luck stat finally go in the negatives?"

"Nope, this is just another day of scrounging and keeping your dumb ass out of trouble," replied Valve. The two started down the dirty shaft again, their strength amassed enough to keep venturing forth, not even aware of what their shaft was connected to. Valve had her flashlight turned on, hoping it would tell her how close she was to her bumbling friend. Instead, it prompted her to comment, "Could you hurry it up some? I'm getting tired of staring at your ass."

"Come on, you know you like it!" Beth replied.

"As much as I like-" Valve started, cut off by the vulgar sound coming from ahead. Already able to smell the gas over the toxic stench behind them, Valve continued, "Now that? That was just uncalled for."

Beth, laughing up ahead, replied in a faux-innocent tone, "Love you!"

Firmly disregarding that last statement, Valve commented, "And again, I question how in the hell you're the oldest one of your siblings."

A faint light could be seen ahead, surprising Beth. "Don't get your hopes up-"

"They never are," Valve interjected.

"I think that this place still has electri-" Beth was stopped short, the vent's lattice grate falling through under her weight and dropping her in a large storage room.

The beeping Valve could already hear didn't bode well, and the subsequent gunshots drove Valve forward gun-first out of the opened hole. After a good fall and a decent landing, Valve raise her assault rifle's dim reflex sight to her bloodshot eyes, finding the source of the gunshots quickly. A pair of silver turrets were mounted on the upper corners of the room, pinning Beth behind a series of thick, steel storage bins. They went down with a mere couple of bursts, but Beth had almost taken fire.

"You alright?" asked Valve, rapidly reloading her weapon.

Beth stared down at where the gunshots tore open her shirt slightly, commenting, "It was only aesthetic damage this time. I really need to get a damn weapon."

It took moments for Valve to discern where they were. "Bunker like this has to have some serious firepower."

Adjusting the straps of her backpack, Beth asked, "And if there isn't?"

"Well then, we're just late to the party."

Valve offered her friend a hand, helping her up and on her feet. Looking at each other, it wasn't hard to see the numerous scrapes, dirt, and damage they'd taken on their seemingly simple quest across Ruination. Beth's original assumption was right, the entire bunker seemed to still have power. Valve saw it as expected, seeing that most of Lastations' bunkers were built 'Lastation Tough'. A soft sound of metal clanked down the halls, Valve immediately raising her rifle and kneeling down to her knees in support. Beth started to quickly clamber some nearby military crates.

There was still the noise growing ever near, but Valve didn't see anything until she looked at the floor, watching the dust scatter at the step of something mechanical. Her scarred finger pulled the trigger, gripping the rifle tightly as she sprayed towards where the noise was coming from. A humanoid robot still charged at her with claws extended, unhindered by its black, metallic plating slowly being chewed off by Valve's rifle. Claws extended forward quickly from the machine, Valve rolling out of the way and continuing to spray bullets, bloody teeth gritted.

Behind the machine, Beth slowly crept down from her perch, rushing forward like the machine did. Using the velocity, Beth held onto her backpack's straps and twisted to the side, letting her backpack's weight force down the machine with a thud. Keeping her backpack facing the machine, she let herself be pulled down by the weight, trapping the machine under the massive mound of junk stored in her backpack.

"Warning! Exhaust port blocked!" the machine cried out.

Valve rushed over to the machine, pinning her rifle's barrel to the machine's squirming head before putting a trio of rounds into it. It stopped moving, and the single spotlight of red eminating from its face faded. Beth clambered back to her feet, looking down at her kill with an annoyed expression. "First death machine we come across and it doesn't have a single weapon on it."

"And you asked if my luck was in the negatives. I'm thinking you're the one that's cursed," commented Valve.

Before the conversation could continue, a rapid whirring started to rise up from the mechanical corpse at their feet. No words needed to be said for the two to book it out of the room. A firm explosion of static and fire did nothing to disturb the bunker's concrete foundation, but a collection of bent, metal boxes blocked the way back in. Looting the military supplies was officially out of the question, leading the duo further down the bunker. Valve stopped halfway down, after peering into two rooms.

"If Uni taught me anything, it's the layout of a typical Lastation military complex," Valve commented aloud, pulling Beth along down a connected hallway significantly shorter.

"Was Lastation always this militaristic? I thought that was Leanbox's schtick."

Valve chuckled as they walked down spotless tunnels, preserved from the ruin above. Checking over her rifle again and cleaning off every speck of dirt she could find, Valve replied, "For a while, it was. But over time, once Noire left, she grew paranoid of the other nations. She swore that she would not be weak, that she'd be treated with respect at all costs. She wouldn't be taken advantage of-"

"I think I get what you're going at."

"I can't say I completely agree with it myself. She pushed away too many people with that process. But, in the end, here we are. Ruination, a testament to the overly ambitious."

The two of them stood before a bulkhead, decorated in stainless steel pistons and shining valves, keeping out any and all that aimed to raid the depths of the armory. Valve knew it was their destination; no other room in the complex would have that kind of protection. A keypad rested in the wall, green lines formed on its screen while it awaited input.

Beth took a quick look at it, asking, "Should we just guess random passwords 'til we get it right?"

Eyeing her closely with concern, Valve asked, "Do you want to alert every robot in this complex straight to our position?"

Holding out her arms, her furrowed brow echoing her frustration, she continued to ask, "Then how do you suppose we get in? Travel back in time to the last person that used it and watch 'im? Maybe grab a bite to eat while we're there?"

Gently pushing Beth away from the keypad, she quickly snapped her finger to a complex chain of numbers. Hissing with steam, the door's random mechanics started to shift and change. Metal locks disengaged with chunky noises, the door eventually falling into the floor with a final whir. Inside was a scarce medium of supplies, but the real prize sat deep inside, holstered up on the wall by a decorative pair of metal hinges. Beth could already see the name on her HUD calling it the Ballerhorn in orange text.

"There's your new toy. Try not to lose this one," Valve commented, pointing to their prize, an ornate, absurdly heavy RPG. White marble with golden wolf faces etched around the details suggested it may have been intended for a decorative piece, something that worried Beth.

To Valve's surprise, Beth looked right down the barrel, using the lightbar above to see if it was loaded. Valve quickly interjected, forcing Beth's wandering hand away from the trigger and turning on the safety. "It's loaded alright, but I wouldn't advise setting that thing off until we're outside."

Beth's eyes examined the engine of war closely, letting it rest on her shoulders, looking through the red sights with curiosity. Checking over the stats in her HUD, Beth read the flavor text aloud, "Delivering the beauty of annihilation."

Valve looked behind her, down the hallway with gun raised, spotting a distant figure approaching. She struggled to make out who it was, even with her reflex sight's brief magnification. "Beth, start picking up everything you can and quick. We have company."

Quickly kneeling at the wide open door with her eye trained on the person ahead, Valve called down the hall loudly, "Identify yourself or I will fire!"

Just as she said that, Beth slid a clip towards Valve. In the matter of milliseconds, Valve checked the clip to see armor-piercing rounds installed, quietly thanking her partner before rapidly reloading her weapon. By the time her sights were raised again, the figure was already standing right before her, wearing the same patchwork armor and blue outfit that Beth wore. The pale eyes, dirty skin, and short brown hair were too familiar to her closest friend, leading Valve to ask, "Beth?"

The replica wanted nothing to do with Valve, its cold eyes looking straight to the frantically looting scrounger in the back, only gazing up in response to Valve's question. It shot forward quickly like a thunderbolt, fists reared back menacingly as it bore an agitated expression, face twisted in anger as it gave Beth a firm fist to the face. Valve whipped around immediately with the trigger squeezed tightly, pumping several rounds into the surreal duplicate.

"Imposter!" the replica shouted as it lifted Beth off the ground with a firm arm, "You stole from me! My looks! My abilities! You are not what you claim you are, you are a mere pretender! A synthetic replica!"

"The hell is it talking about Beth?!" shouted Valve over the raging gunfire stapled next to her ear.

Beth was thrown into Valve by the strange duplicate, walking towards them and shrugging off the damage that Valve inflicted earlier. Both of them had been tossed outside the room, Beth's backpack weighing down Valve as she struggled to get back up. With a forceful shove, Valve pushed Beth aside, making her almost spill her rocket launcher. Quickly punching in the numbers needed on the keypad nearby, Valve shut the door just as the replica tried to flash forward, crushing its arm and leg in the door and severing it from the furious remains still locked inside.

Widened eyes and gasping breath compiled with Valve's already agitated nerves. Quickly reloading her gun, she walked towards the severed foot and picked it up, keeping her distance from the arm lest it try attacking next. The first thing she noticed was the severed wires and machine parts that made up the otherwise believable machine.

"I don't know what that was all about, I've-"

"Serial code Z0-02, Code Name: Interplay," Valve read the label stamped to the bottom of the foot.

Beth's eyes widened beyond Valve's, slowly inching away from the severed arms still on the ground. She could still hear the machine demanding its release, muffled by the firm steel comprising the bulkhead.

Suspicious, Valve asked, "This name ring any bells?"

"Nope, never heard that name before in my life!" Beth hastily replied, her widened eyes claiming something otherwise.

Tossing the foot behind her, it collided with the concrete loudly, Valve replying, "Cool, let's get moving then. You have your toy, so let's get the hell out of here."

Beth didn't hesitate to follow her partner, glancing back to the steel bulkhead and the fading cries for escape. "How did she find me down here?"

"D'you say something?" asked Valve.

"Nothing!" Beth shot back. After a few steps down the seemingly endless labyrinth of concrete and decorative metal arches of military green, she asked, "How are we getting out of here?"

"Should be an elevator to the surface connected to the hangar. Hopefully no more robots are wandering around ahead of us this time."

Beth kept quiet, storing Ballerhorn on the holster attached to her back. The shock from before had faded, her relaxed nature returning quickly when she realized again that Valve had her back.

Leading her aloof friend down a left turn into a control room, Valve asked, "Loot anything good from there?"

"Just a lot of ammo. And I found some adhesives and a wrench. I think I might've picked up some wood too. Oh, and there were some milk bottles, a baseball cap and-"

While Valve questioned how she found such strange and random things in a few storage lockers meant for rifles and pistols, she tuned out her friend for a moment in favor for the strange grinding coming up ahead from the hangar. When the chipped doorway came up for the hangar, Valve made sure to squeeze in first, slowly peering in with Beth turned quiet. Bright, industrial-grade ceiling fixtures illuminated around thirty to forty moving piles of rubble, using crushed jeeps, soda machines, and dumpsters as chunky arms to pull themselves forward. The sight almost set Valve into shock, leaving her speechless for a moment.

"The hell's that noise?" asked Beth, trying to get her head into the door.

"Shut up," Valve commanded in a harsh whisper. Thinking aloud, Valve uttered, "H-Hell man, this is not good. Kei's gonna want to hear about this."

Beth finally squeezed her head in to see the herd of Tri-Shrex spawns, hobbling around aimlessly, taking in random rubble laying on the ground. "Aww, look at the little gods of ruin! They're so small!"

"Shut it!" Valve fired back, looking over her shoulder with a pale expression a gamer would make during their first horror game. "I want you to follow me to the elevator across the catwalk. Do not say a word until we are in."

Nodding firmly, Beth took her place behind Valve, crouching just as she did with her HUD acknowledging their stealth mode with a small statement in the corner. Every step Valve took, she knew could have a good chance of alerting the creatures. It was too soon to tell if they could hurl acid like the original did, but she had no intention of finding out. At the halfway mark, Valve looked over her shoulder to check for her company, seeing Beth making weird faces. When the gears finally turned, Valve put her hand swiftly over Beth's nose and mouth, which stopped her sneeze cold.

Step by step, Beth observed the creatures below, pondering in her head what kind of loot they'd drop from their bodies. Being made of ruin, Beth figured they'd have plenty of concrete and steel, maybe even some spare circuitry. While her eyes were averted, her turned face rammed into Valve's soft rear, swinging around her arms wildly to keep her suddenly jolted balance. Once stable, she looked ahead to see Valve pressing the button for the elevator, back attached to the door and ready to form in.

By the time the door was open, Valve was inside, looking at her teammate getting ready to pull out Ballerhorn and aim at the nearest creature bumbling below. Valve whispered fiercely to Beth, "Don't you even dare!"

"Come on, just let me see how hard they are to kill!" Beth shot back, crudely aiming her RPG. Her plan was denied by Valve retreating from the elevator just pull her comrade by her leather armor straps into the elevator.

With both girls inside, Valve pressed the button for the top floor and immediately looked down at Beth, who sheepishly grinned in response as she stood up.

"You are gonna get us both killed!" Valve commented loudly.

Just like that, the girl that Valve had just been looking at vanished abruptly. A faint yelp could be heard below as if she'd gotten stuck at the bottom of the elevator shaft, Valve looking around rapidly in response. Beth immediately materialized before her in a flash, wearing a frightened expression. "I hate it when it does that!"

Valve reared away from Beth a little, commenting with a furrowed brow, "You really need to get that spazzy HUD of yours fixed."

Before Beth could retort, they were at surface level, the subtle grinding of the elevator coming to a quick halt. The both of them reared back as the light of a foggy sun poured in through the open elevator doors. Valve stepped out with her rifle in one hand and her other hand reaching for the cell phone hiding in her jacket's front pocket. Pulling it out and reading the faded symbols near the cracked top, she had just a little bit of signal out in Ruination, just enough to call Kei.

While Valve was on the phone, Beth stepped toward the edge of the concrete platform they had exited from, noticing a chunk of metal resting on the filthy floor. After closer inspection, Beth recognized it as the axle from her buggy, commenting, "That's just adding insult to injury there."

Ballerhorn in hand, Beth could already see where their salvo would wind up. A rotting concrete bar kept up what was left of a towering arcade up, the building even slouching towards the Radiant Sea. Valve approached from behind with a despairing sigh. "Wouldn't respond. Gonna need to get to Lastation for sure now."

"All the more reason to keep moving forward. You ready?"

Valve nodded and descended from the concrete platform, sliding down the wall before kicking off, ending with a stylish roll forward. With Beth still following, she asked, "How many rounds you got?"

"Eight," Beth replied, "shouldn't take more than two to down the ol' building."

"Let's make this quick then," Valve finished, taking shelter behind their decaying buggy. She knew the waves the building would flesh out would soon sink into the shore and she wasn't about to get caught up in it.

Beth knelt down, stoically pulling out the massive RPG with a heave and squinting as she aimed down the red, glassy sights. With a lock on her target, she hesitated with her finger around the trigger. Her first time firing off an RPG would frighten her, she just knew it would. Still, with a mission and waypoint on her HUD, she forced close her finger, a flash of fire leaving the exhaust port as a fleeing missile flew towards the distant pillar. A shrill explosion was tailed by the sound of concrete cracking and debris colliding with the ground. The arcade groaned in pain as it slouched forward even more, visibly curling as it vomited arcade cabinets and gaming peripherals from the shattered upper windows.

"Fire another one," Valve commanded, eyes glued to the building.

Pulling out another rocket, Beth hastily reloaded the RPG with a shaky hand. The shock of firing rattled her a little and almost pushed her to the ground. Aiming at the crumbling support again, she was quicker to pull the missile, the smell of rocket fuel overriding the toxic air as another payload left the RPG.

Steel roared and toxic water spat at the falling chunks, the building falling with only the squeal of breaking girders breaking the ambiance. Beth hid behind the buggy with Valve, watching the show with interest. A loud splash was followed by toxic water splashing several feet high, releasing a mist of green while the building sunk in. Still a few feet above the water level, the building held well enough to become a makeshift bridge, Valve and Beth approaching the slope of rubble leading conveniently up to their bridge. Holstering Ballerhorn behind her, Beth looked over to see Valve eyeballing some old arcade cabinets that drifted around quietly, refusing to submit to the murky green water.

"Hey, you alright? What's up?" asked Beth.

Valve still didn't reply.

Beth tapped her shoulder, Valve jumping, keeping her weapon lowered though.

"Something on your mind?"

"Oh, I just felt a little nostalgic for a minute. Uni used to take me here a lot, always said Lady Purple Heart used to go with her to this place."

"Ouch. Kinda feel bad now," said Beth, watching her step while she maneuvered across a patchwork bridge of concrete.

Valve shook her head. "Don't be, memories are made to be forgotten someday."

"Says the one with an internal favor index."

Valve laughed, finally taking her eyes away from the nostalgic sight. In the distance, the two of them could hear what sounded like a voice. A shout for help even.

Not far from their bridge was a lone sailboat drifting aimlessly from the restless waves. A girl, maybe fourteen or so in age, with a ponytail of red hair and some basic torn clothes, called and waved from the sail-less sailboat. Valve could see that the bottom of the boat was well past rusted and threatening to stop floating anytime soon. How she somehow never reached a shore was beyond her.

Beth looked over at her partner with one hand on her hip and another shielding her eyes from the peeping light above. "Should we help her?"

"Could be a trap," Valve declared, already raising her rifle. The distant girl winced and held her hands out in fear in response.

"Could be loot's more like it," Beth replied, pulling out a rope from her backpack she was going to use at home for a pulley system. Tying a few knots for notches, she threw it as far as she could, landing it perfectly in the boat. The more she pulled herself to shore, the more the boat started to sink, failing in a matter of seconds. Furiously pulling on the rope, almost pulling in Beth in the process, the girl made it to their rugged bridge, Beth pulling up the girl.

"Thank you so much, I wouldn't have lasted much longer out there," the girl thanked, brushing out the tainted water from her hair.

Never once did Valve lower her rifle. "Name?"

The girl stepped back, stopping when her back ran into Beth's Ballerhorn. There was a hint of fear hiding in her tear-soaked eyes, her stuttering voice replying, "L-Luna. I'm Luna."

"Got anything good on you? Any scrap?" asked Beth.

Valve, still aiming at her, asked, "Maybe guns? Or any weapons at all? Ammo?"

"I'm afraid I don't have anything on me. I've been running from zombies this whole time, I couldn't have gotten anything if I wanted to!"

That didn't convince Valve. Lowering her weapon for the first time that meeting, Valve immediately patted down the girl, searching every crevice for something of use. Luna was shaking, but complied with a dash of hope in her heart that they'd lead her to safety.

"Last question, then we'll stop pestering you," Beth stated.

Luna turned to face her, eyes still glued to her massive RPG.

"Did your sailboat happen to ram into, I don't know, a large ramp-like structure?"

Luna nodded quickly, stuttering again as she replied, "That stupid thing tore up my sail! It's parts floated down the sea when I rammed it."

"Okay," Beth replied calmly, "that's fine. Just wanted to know the story."

Valve kept her gun lowered, raising a brow to the strange behavior of her partner.

Pointing a finger from her free hand towards Luna's sailboat slowly sinking into the sea, Beth asked, "Hey, what's going on with your boat?"

While Luna was turned towards the sea, Beth got behind and swiftly kicked the girl over the edge, Luna giving a quick squeal followed by the splash of water. It took seconds for the Wireframes to grab onto her, pulling her down with their rusted, steel tendrils.

"Hope you weren't plot essential!" Beth shouted down to her with a hint of victory.

Valve gave her an annoyed sigh and a grunt. "Beth! How many times have I freakin' told you?! Don't murder random NPCs!"

"Bitch ruined my ramp! Had to get revenge somehow. Plus I really didn't want to get stuck with a stupid escort mission," Beth shot back.

"I'm already escorting one idiot!" Valve countered.

Donning an innocent smile, Beth finished, "And I'm your idiot."

As soon as the girl was beyond the point of no return, Valve had to encourage them to move on. The path wasn't much longer to the next shore, a cascading waterfall of rubble to the left and an expanse of ruined houses on the right. The further they traveled, the more Valve recognized of her environment. A worn, wooden sign attached to the shoreline read, "Echo Hills".

Rifle gripped tightly, Valve scanned the environment for enemies, but couldn't keep her eyes from wandering to that aged sign nearby. "I remember this place," she thought to herself. "Hey Beth, does this-"

She stopped when she saw nothing standing next to her. Valve gave her meager sigh once more, but knew somehow that she wasn't in danger. Looking around the small plot of buildings scattered around the residential district, Valve took in the faded shades of green and blue, the dirtied whites and yellows, the gritty greys and browns. As if painting in her mind, Valve could recall every spotless detail of what her old neighborhood once looked like. Like the return of a fleeting dream, even the faces she knew many years ago came back to her.

For the first time that entire trip, Valve holstered her weapon. Hands at her side, she strolled down the cracked sidewalk, taking in a pure, fresh air. One step at a time, Valve absorbed in the subtle wind playfully whisking around old newspapers and jostling dead trees. The world seemed to stop, not a sound wandering down the streets other than Valve's solemn steps.

"I think it was right there," Valve thought to herself with eyes aimed at the front lawn of a white house with a collapsed garage, "Ark tried her first magic. Melted their dog if I remember right."

A little further down the street, Valve could see a crumbling, stonework house, almost cobbled together from the cells of the earth itself. It was one of the more organic houses, but there were still hints of electronic scrap hanging out at the front. "And I think that was where Sierra lived. Had a pet dragon too," Valve continued to speak in the depths of her mind. Looking at the side of the house, she chuckled and accidentally thought aloud, "Would you look at that. You can still see the scorch marks from the little bastard. Still remember telling that dumb girl I was from the future. Not the brightest one of the bunch."

Finally, up ahead was Valve's old home, still decorated in fake zombie heads her mother put up as a joke. Just two floors of old memories to Valve, but from the top, she could hear a faint noise. No fear in her heart, she opened the cracked door, flakes of paint falling off. Like stepping into a portal to the past, Valve could see the house as it once was. And like a flash of light, she came right back to the destroyed reality that she was at peace with. It wasn't the first time she'd returned home for a visit.

Valve could almost hear her younger self say, "I'm home!"

In the dust and dirt of her abandoned home, she could still hear a soft clattering in the upper floors, near her room. "If my parents came back as zombies, I'm gonna be pissed..."

Something in her kept her from bringing forth her firearm. She ruled it as just following her mother's old rule against guns in the house. One step after another, Valve continued down the hall, cracked wood rotted out in some parts. Filtering out the webs and debris, Valve stood at the faded door of her room. Her heart didn't race and her blood flowed like normal, opening the door just as she normally would. Greeted by a raised behind and a turning head, Valve wasn't surprised at what she saw.

"You do realize this is my house right?" Valve asked Beth, who rooted through her drawers, making a mess in the process.

"I thought these panties looked familiar!" Beth replied.

With Beth's head moved out of the way, Valve could see that her partner was looking through her old clothes, most of which were probably too small for her now. "I would suggest putting those down before bad things happen to you."

"Aww, you make it sound like I've never seen them before," Beth countered, closing the drawers and standing up, "And before you start chewing me out, I know for a fact we're safe here!"

Valve sat down on her bed, scattering dust from the messy covers, looking down at the scattered belongings around the floor. To Valve, Beth wasn't making any messes that weren't already there to begin with.

"And what makes you think that?"

"I-" Beth stopped, sheepishly continuing after a minute of thought, "I really don't know. There's just something about this place that makes me feel safe."

Valve wasn't going to make a fuss about her reasoning. Her mind was on something else, with her hands following suit. Raising up boxes from their closeted graves, she revealed a safe embedded in the floor.

"So that's where the loot was!" Beth exclaimed loudly, peering over Valve's shoulder, "My skills must be getting rusty."

"Hands off klepto," Valve replied, swatting Beth's approaching hand, "this stuff's going to important places."

Beth raised a brow, asking, "What place is more important than my inventory?"

"A few friends need this stuff," said Valve, turning the safe's dial in a few repeated motions. A soft click could be heard within the steel, Valve opening it and revealing a faint glow from inside.

Eyes widened, Beth gasped and asked loudly, "Where in the hell did you get a Share Crystal from?!"

"It's a very old gift Uni gave me from back when the battle with Arfoire was going on," Valve explained. She pulled out that, a small computer chip, and a strange red orb with blue, holographic data flowing around, storing them all in her inventory.

Beth crossed her arms, staring at Valve with scrutiny. "Okay, so the Share Crystal I can figure out is going back to Uni, but is the other stuff going there too? I can't imagine what Uni would want with a Digitarium's Wave and...whatever that little chip is."

"It's that custom Lagorithm I worked on. Remember? The one that Crit tried to put in his car thinking it was for GPS?"

"Oh yeah! Didn't he take out Ark's garage because of that?"

Valve nodded as she got up.

Heading out of the house behind Valve, Beth stated, "You never answered my question."

"The other stuff's just going to a friend. Don't worry about it."

"Guess I'll just leave it at that." Beth said to herself, heading down the stairs with her hand running down the worn handrails. She accidentally pried up part of the wood, hastily trying to put it back while her friend went ahead. Secretly, she wondered if her friend found some kind of boyfriend, ruling that idea out as quick as it came to her.

Valve stopped at the foyer, Beth standing at the door leading out once she realized her friend wasn't with her. Speaking not with sorrow, but rather, with a heartfelt fondness, Valve whispered, "Bye Mom. Bye Dad."

Beth started moving forwards, out into the warm street with Valve now being the one following. "You know, this place is going to be torn down when Uni brings this place back."

"Yeah? What about it?" asked Valve.

"Aren't you sad? This is your house and all. Hell, this whole neighborhood holds memories for you."

"Memories are meant to be forgotten, and futures are there for those willing to move past them," replied Valve.

Raising a brow, Beth made a confused grunt.

Giving her teammate a pat on the head, Valve told her, "You'll understand someday. Second chances exist everywhere, and I'm waiting for Uni to make another one come true for this old place, so that someday it can make even more memories."

Beth gave a soft chuckle. "Valvina, you say some of the strangest stuff sometimes."

"Come on, I'm trying to be cool here," Valve replied.

The two shared a soft laugh, traveling down that aged highway. With the sun peering once again from dirty clouds, it illuminated a fallen earth they traveled harmlessly down. With a crash and crumble, their laugh was halted by the roar of a familiar enemy, caving in an old house in its wake. One of the miniature Tri-Shrex managed to find its way above ground, rattling the loose sidewalk as it barreled forward toward the two. The grinding of material caught in its body was only overshadowed by the sound of it pounding Beth into a nearby house. In the split second they had to prepare, Valve took longer than she'd have liked getting out her weapon.

"Scattershot!" Valve called aloud, a sharp black glyph forming around her weapon's muzzle. She fired her weapon in a full circle, aiming in the center and quickly firing at the creature's spine. Every bullet in her circle shot out at once, guided by her final shot towards the micro Tri-Shrex. Roaring a distorted scream, it turned around to face Valve, whipping Beth with its tail. Using a pair of crushed cars as arms, it dragged itself forward furiously, leaving a breadcrumb trail of debris behind it. Valve effortlessly dodged out of the way, but fled even farther forward when the beast started spewing acid from its mouth made up of a rusty sewer pipe.

Beth, still shocked by the sudden rampage, used the energy left in her to aim Ballerhorn. There wasn't any hesitation when Beth fired right into its mouth. The throttle from the rocket jolted Beth's head into the steel strut she was rammed into, making her vision blur and her head spin.

The rocket's explosion dismantled the micro Tri-Shrex, scattering debris like a frag grenade. Valve walked away with a few bruises, but ultimately watched the creature crumble, its cars falling forward, no longer connected to its body. With only a few breaths expended, she quickly rushed to Beth's aid, helping her up. While Beth stumbled, Valve rapidly said, "I'm really sorry about that. I let my guard down."

Trying to hold up her hand and failing, Beth replied, "To be fair, we both let our guards down. At least it died fairly quickly."

They stepped quickly away from the mass of debris that was quick to blend in with their crumbling environment.

"What are those things anyways? I'd only heard rumors about something like that, but much bigger."

"They're creatures that thrive off the ruin left behind by people physically and emotionally," Valve explained, "Resentment, scorn, they feed off of negative emotions people leave behind. Let's face it, even in a gaming world, rubble doesn't just get up and wander around on its own."

"Fair enough," Beth added.

Neither of the two could feel that alleviating vibe the residential district once gave off, weapons at the ready as they headed forward, down a canyon of destroyed skyscrapers lining a crushed street.

"The Lastation Guild had actually sent me out here originally to scout the area," Valve continued, "I didn't expect I'd find spawns of that hulk wandering around. And their numbers will only grow unless we get people to wake up and cooperate."

"Is it really that bad?" asked Beth, looking inside a nearby post office box for goodies.

Beckoning her friend away from the random loot bins, Valve replied, "Yeah, it is. Think about it, Lastation went into Last Stand because monster attacks. Monsters only swarm and cause havoc when the people of this world are uneasy. It doesn't matter the reason, problems add up and unfortunately, people aren't realizing it quick enough."

"Isn't the CPU supposed to help with that?"

"Hence why Uni's doing what she is to try and get Lastation back on its feet. But she can't do that very well when, instead of working with her to fix the problems and believe in her, the only thing people are doing is complaining about the problems until they go away."

Beth took in her words quietly, only giving a gentle hum in response as she processed the words Valve had said.

"And there's your history lesson for the day. Don't expect another one very soon, I know about as much about this stuff as you do."

Up ahead, looming over the husks of tall, business buildings and rugged skyscrapers threatening to topple over, was that red tower that led them to their destination in the first place. Rust and peeled paint adorned the nearing tower, broken elevators being the only thing that could bring one up to its rotting peak. Beth had already pointed out the building just in front of the tower, addressing it as the place she intended to raid.

Unable to make out much, Valve could see from where they were a faded sign dubbing the building as a hotel. "So what's so special about this place?"

"Got a tip from one of Ark's friends that room 148 had some goodies left behind from a skilled mage. Wanted to see if there was anything in there I could sell for profit. Or use, that could happen too."

Valve saw that as a solid enough goal for her, but refused to let the girl run about on her own. There was still a taste of guilt for letting her guard down before, and she sought not to let it happen again.

A sequence of Glitches leapt across the tops of skyscrapers on the other side of the city square they traveled around. A gutted park rested in the middle of a little town square, the array of buildings around them only breaking for narrow streets to pass through. Valve kept her gun trained on the beasts until they were out of earshot, while Beth still wandered from container to container in search of junk. At the end of their route, they stepped into the lobby, skirting around the crashed chandelier that scattered its glassy remains along a torn red carpet. Aging steps creaked at the duo's every step, neither of them able to use the locked elevator.

Along the way, Valve prompted Beth to stay near her in case of zombies. Beth crudely held Ballerhorn by the exhaust like a makeshift warhammer. On the first floor, Valve started down a hallway before no longer feeling the warm presence of her teammate behind her. Immediately donning an angry expression, Valve whipped around to see her friend pointing down another hallway. Wiping her face clean of anger and sweat, Valve followed her friend with a rifle aimed rigidly at the door they approached. There wasn't a sound inside other than them, but Valve didn't let that ruin her guard.

Giving the handle a firm jolt, Beth reeled back when the knob bit back with jagged metal. With the door locked, Valve immediately nodded towards Beth, Beth kneeling down at the frame of the door. Valve gave a brief countdown with her fingers before flinging a firm kick at the door. Dust scattered, Beth coughing in response, while Valve immediately bolted in, scanning the hotel room with vigor.

Casually walking into the room with her friend, Beth commented, "Guns down Twitchy, I think the coast is clear. Not a soul here."

"That's what we thought ten minutes ago. We were proven very wrong with that," Valve shot back.

Beth rolled her eyes before looking around for a briefcase or a lockbox. Anything loot-worthy would be vacuumed up by Beth in the process, but she had a gut feeling there was treasure waiting around for them. Her gut was right when she saw the drawers and closets filled with random boxes and papers. Valve was unfortunately assigned to the closet while Beth looked through the drawers for loot.

"One things for sure, no matter how many looters run through Ruination, there's always more loot to be found somewhere," Valve commented, struggling to pry down a box from the top of the closet.

"The apocalypse sure is doing me well," replied Beth.

"I wouldn't quite call this an apocalypse," Valve countered, pausing for a moment to consider her words, "Uni's just waiting to make renovations is all."

Scoffing quietly, Beth finished, "It doesn't take four horsemen to tell me when an apocalypse has happened."

The two looked for a good hour, Valve finding just the usual junk that Beth still pocketed anyways. Beth had found some manuscripts and tracking documents she figured would be good for future raids, but still didn't find anything extravagant other than a sole first aid kit.

Valve, with hands paled by dirt and dust, picked up an interesting tome, locked by magic with multiple shining jewels embedded in the spine and corners. Brushing the dust off its guilded cover, Valve could make out the name. "Grimoir Feuer? Think I found some kind of fruity magic book if you want it, looks like the closest thing to real loot I've seen so far."

"I dunno man," Beth replied, leaning off the torn bed to see, "last weird tome I picked up plopped me into a pocket dimension."

"Oh yeah, wasn't that the big library place that you kept calling-" Valve paused, sitting idly next to more old boxes, "Oh, how did you word that..."

"A squid god's porn collection," Beth added, her voice turning sour, "Yes, there were books and tentacles and I don't want to talk about it."

Valve secretly snickered before tossing the book to Beth. Despite her suspicions, Beth was quick to pocket the tome.

Searching back through the boxes, Beth gasped with delight when she came across a military-style pauldron. Valve immediately stared at the girl managing her inventory, waiting for something special to happen, almost excited.

Equipping the shoulderpiece through her HUD, she saw her stats rise sharply. The triumphant look on her face started to fade once she saw Valve's deadpan expression stuck on her.

"To tell her, or not?" Valve thought to herself, "As much hell as she puts me through, I wouldn't mind watching her run down the street like this..."

"What?" asked Beth. While Valve still wore that flat expression, Beth finally put the pieces together, her shoulders dropping as she sighed, "It's doing it again, isn't it?"

"I may or may not be able to see your underwear right now."

Beth immediately re-equipped her armor, looking straight down this time to make sure she was covered from head to toe. She gave a harsh sigh, grumbling to herself, "Never will I trust Max with my stuff again."

Giving a soft snicker before going back to work dissecting the boxes, Valve commented, "Not the first time I've seen you naked. Remember the Wirefra-"

"Shut it!" Beth fired back, unable to keep herself from chuckling and flashing a disarming smile, "It was my first time here and I didn't know!"

At last, Valve was finished rooting through her boxes, shoving them to the side of the room with a rusty clank before doing a brief search through the other crevices nearby. The still air made Valve uneasy, just the sound of Beth's rummaging there to stir the vapid atmosphere. As Beth plucked some ammo and credits from an open lockbox, she commented, "Well, least we won't be walking out of here empty handed."

"Correction. You won't be walking out of here empty handed."

"Eh, I'll split the profits later when we get to Lastation."

Valve stopped dead, her brows furrowed as she brushed her greasy hair away from her ears.

Beth stared at her with confusion, asking, "What?"

"Shh," Valve shot back, going over to the cracked window immediately and raising it up, spilling its dust and debris all over her. Even when coughing up what the window had spilled, Valve surveyed every corner of the town square the hotel overlooked. "Looks like some soldiers are in a bind there at the northeast corner."

Valve stepped away from the window, reloading her weapon. Beth was next to look, able to audibly hear gunfire from far away. The distant soldiers, clad in the dark, military drab of Lastation, fought off a squadron of ill-tempered humans rushing at them with makeshift tools of destruction. With hand on golden trim, Beth picked up Ballerhorn and aimed loosely out of the window before Valve stopped her.

Pushing down the barrel of Ballerhorn, Valve asked loudly, "Are you stupid?!"

"Probably," replied Beth.

"Don't fire that thing when there's a clearly visible fire escape in the way!" Valve shouted, pulling Beth up and getting ready to abandon their search and flee down the stairs, "I'm starting to remember why nobody trusts you with explosives."

"Yeah, I-" Beth paused, retrieving her weapon and following her friend, "Wait, when did I get that privilege revoked? I haven't done anything-"

In between hastened breaths, Valve interjected, "Remember Bio? Remember you thinking you could fire a propane tank from that scrap launcher you cobbled together?"

Dispelling the look of confusion, Beth's voice regained its energy as she replied, "Oh yeah! I blew up his treehouse while he was in it!"

With both of them marching out of the hotel, Valve offered a meager suggestive nod. "Now you remember?

Still toting around Ballerhorn, ready to fire, Beth gave a sheepish chuckle. "I also remember him yelling at me a lot. He was pretty pissed about that."

"I'd think that'd be a pretty normal reaction to almost being reduced to giblets."

The chatter ceased when the enemies were in view. They were spotted immediately, the gunfire now being split between the Lastation soldiers and the two girls. Bullets chipped the grey of concrete and tore through leftover cars, an array of bullets sliding past the girls like they weren't even aiming for them at all. It still kept Valve pinned down, seldom peering up from the car they ducked behind. Every time she did scored one extra kill on the group, her aim for one-shot, one-kill holding true with every brief sight she had of them.

One of the group got cocky, marching over to where the girls were hiding with a makeshift shotgun of wood and rusty steel. He was one of the more armored ones, his head sheltered in a thick dome of steel that looked like an old lampshade with a single slit cut out of it. Between bursts of blindfire, Valve would rapidly reload her weapon time after time, never running out of ammo with such a tactic. And during her sporadic mess of gunfire, Beth was lining up a shot with her rocket launcher without Valve any wiser to what she was doing. Wincing with every bullet that wandered too close to her face, Beth pulled the trigger, hearing a man's shout barely audible over the loud explosion.

Now panicked, Valve shouted, "What the hell was that?!"

"I made the moron go away!" Beth fired back.

Valve knew what was coming next, peering over at the hood of the car they hid behind. Flames started to spew from the front, prompting Valve to grab Beth's arm and force her to follow, running across the street with a hail of lead hot on their trail, uttering with a panicked voice, "Nope, nope, nope, nope!"

Only four people remained, and one of the soldiers was downed with another one starting to slow down. Valve began to walk down the sidewalk, hunched over as she approached the street corner, a loud explosion almost knocking her off her feet.

"You are so lucky that was only-"

Valve stopped herself again, her friend nowhere to be seen. Making a risky move, she stood upright, able to see her friend frantically looting the pockets of the man she'd just obliterated. The only thing left was a torso with some pouches tethered to it with loose belts, but that didn't stop Beth from trying her luck. Valve immediately ran out of cover, pulling her friend by the belts binding her chestplate, uttering under her breath the whole while, "Stupid is as stupid does..."

Taking a stray bullet in the shoulder, Valve dropped her friend behind a parked car before taking off again, flanking the four remaining enemies quickly, Valve picked off three of the before the last one could turn around to see his opponent. The two Lastation soldiers left pumped his back full of bullets, the last of the attackers dropped dead, the red health bars above their heads disappearing. Valve walked solo to the soldiers, Beth rapidly looting whatever corpse was still intact.

One of the soldiers, wearing a few more insignias on his chestpiece, approached Valve. The black helmet he wore muffled his voice as he said, "State your business."

"Valvina, leader of the Lastation Guild's Extreme Operations Department. On a recon mission, thought we'd lend a hand."

The man scoffed faintly. "We don't need your help, Guild dog. We're on important duties here, move along."

Valve could already see Beth approaching from the other way, sneaking behind their rude leader to the wounded soldiers.

"Not even if Kei herself sent me out for this mission?"

"Whether our commanding officer sent you or not is of no importance to us. We have duties to perform."

"Have you heard from Kei at all?" Valve sincerely asked, holding out her phone briefly in her free hand. "Tried to get ahold of her earlier, didn't have any signal though."

"That information is on a need-to-know basis," the leader replied.

Valve rolled her eyes. "Well I need to know. Unless you want a collection of rubble abominations swarming Lastation."

"Not our problem."

By the time their pointless conversation was at an end, Beth had already healed up both of their downed soldiers, the both of them now reluctant to follow their leader. Despite this, their leader commanded them away, the leader stating firmly to Valve, "Do not follow us and do not get in our way. You're just a hindrance to us."

Beth, wearing a satisfied smirk, "Even if someone doesn't want your help, you give it to them anyway. Isn't that what you always told me?"

"Hey, you still remember! Looks like your brain damage hasn't completely taken over," Valve replied with a laugh that Beth joined in on. "Do you think he notices yet?"

"He probably noticed the moment I started healing them. Doubt he cares though."

Valve gave a shrug. "Judging by how he got two of his teammates downed without helping them, I'd say he doesn't play well with others."

The path forward was down the way they came, Valve assuming that the soldiers were just recently set out for patrol patterns. Of course, Valve would have to go to Kei herself to ask, taken she still cared. At that point, Valve was more interested in having someone more tolerable taking that role.

Lastation's walls were nearby, their journey almost over at last. Valve wanted to report straight to Kei to let her know of the incoming threats, while Beth was interested in stocking up on supplies. Walking along the walls, where a makeshift path was made out of some run-down alleys. Stepping over a toppled trash-can, Valve asked, "You heading home after we get to Lastation?"

"Probably going to stop and get supplies first."

"Gonna be a long trek through Castlescape for you then."

Beth gave a wincing expression, thinking aloud, "Damn, Lastation still wont open up public transportation to the other nations?"

"Nope, Uni won't authorize it until the other CPUs cooperate with her demands."

"Thought that Uni and the other CPUs were supposed to be meeting at Leanbox to discuss peace or something like that?" asked Beth.

"Were they?"

Beth gave a subtle shrug, still trying to stow away Ballerhorn on her back. The straps were tangled, leading Valve to stop her so she could untangle them. "You ever think the nations will be able to get along again?"

"I know Uni. She'll never admit it, no matter how many times you ask, but she really misses the other CPUs. Like friends though, they argue, and bicker."

"Like we do," Beth added with a chuckle.

Done helping her friend get reorganized, Valve donned a smile, patting her friend's mop of dusty brown hair. "But no matter what, friends will be friends, that title never goes away. I know for a fact that our world will pick its head up again soon enough. The people will realize just how strong of a bond we have with each other."

"You're right," replied Beth, a glimmer of light in her eyes, "And this is why I listen to you."

"As I've said before kiddo," Valve started, checking her rifle one last time before the Lastation gate.

"You're a pain in the ass, but you're my pain in the ass," the two said together.

"I know," Beth replied with a soft laugh.

Greeting the automated turrets like she would a stationed guard, Valve flashed her ID card to the nearby security cameras, the door unlocking with the loud sound of metal on metal. "Now come on, enough of the sappy stuff. Let's get us a warm bed and some food!"

And the door opened with a rigid creak.

Valve widened her eyes once she could see in, standing with rifle in hand and a frightened Beth behind her, "Well, that's not good."

What was supposed to be the sounds of heavy industry was instead shouting in the distance, coupled with the sight of Lastations' people scattering from the streets, all of them running.

Running for their lives.

---

And that's all for now, but never fear! There is likely another chapter on the way as I write this. I think there'll be a good amount of content from Code and the others now that I've taken a good break from their action. Good things are in store, some light, and some dark. Stick around folks, the plot's about to thicken...