The Heart of Steel

In the sleepy air of a winter's afternoon, Raven treaded heavily across the crisp, frosted grass of the surface plains. With his newly reforged and freshly tested sword in hand, he descended into the tunnels and headed toward the very bottom of the ponggo village. His new clothes were light and sturdy, a necessity since his new arm and shoulder guards were some of the heaviest he had ever worn. At Rena's suggestion, he even took a proper shower for the first time in ages, washing the sweat and dirt from his hair and causing it to puff out and fall over his forehead. Even his nasod arm shone brightly in the dull light of the hazy underground now that it had shed its coat of soot and grime. Satisfied with his new equipment and moving under an earnest resolve, Raven made his way through a narrow, winding cavern to take the final step toward the present. As he rounded the corner and stepped into a dull, crimson glow, he saw Eve standing beside a broad, shimmering table. Judging by the headrest, the array of wires and tubes sticking out of its side, and the rusted monitor hanging from its side, Raven could only assume that this was some sort of nasod operating table. Though it gave him pause, he had expected something of that nature. What he hadn't expected to see there was the silhouette of Aisha, standing in the corner anxiously and fiddling with her wand.

"It's about time you got here." Aisha jumped up to her feet and made her way over to the operating table, pouting the entire time. "We've been waiting almost an hour, and she still won't tell me what we're doing in a way that makes sense."

"I have told you before; it may be necessary to restrain him and you are the only one who could do so with any certainty." Eve opened her console and began sorting through a dozen translucent screens as Raven made his way toward her.

"Sorry, I didn't know she would drag you into this." He scowled aimlessly at the operating table and then softened his gaze as he turned back to Aisha. "I've asked her to remove the weapons built into this arm. They're too dangerous to use when there are other people around me."

Aisha glanced over to Raven's nasod arm and pressed her hands together unconsciously, the light burn on her palms still stinging as they touched. "Are you sure? It's almost stronger than my magic. If you used that, it'd make fighting against those nasod a lot easier..."

"No. I'll fight with my sword, because I can trust that. I can't trust this arm, not when someone's life is at stake." Clenching his claw into a fist, he glared down at his mechanical hand with contempt. When he looked up again, Eve was standing before him with a pair of long, spindly wires in hand.

"Before I disable the weaponry in this device, there is something that I need to test. Please remain still."

"Wait." Raven held up his right hand as Eve moved to place the two wires into his left arm. "What are you going to test?"

A slow, simmering tension rose in the air as Eve locked eyes with Raven. When she spoke, her voice carried an unnerving, ominous gravity throughout the chamber. "The code used to control you has been reconstructing itself."

The sting of fear shot through Raven's spine and his eyes darkened. "What are you talking about? This arm wasn't controlling me, it was just influencing me. Didn't you take all of that out in the mountain?" He stared down at Eve coldly, a churning anxiety swelling in the pit of his stomach. Turning quietly, Eve slid her hands across her console screens, enlarging two tiny windows that flickered rapidly as a stream of illegible lines flashed through the air.

"I know that you cannot read this, but this is the code that your arm's core programming is writing as we speak. When I finished extracting the control code, I began monitoring your arm to ensure it would not malfunction and cause you harm. Seven hours ago, it began recompiling itself from the base code that I left intact. I apologize for not realizing this sooner, but I need to test its effects once more."

"Hold on, what are you saying?" Aisha's eyes widened and her shoulders tensed up as she slowly made sense of Eve's declaration. "His arm is going to start controlling him again?"

"That is exactly what-"

"Just take out everything then. What do you need to run tests for?" Raven's voice rose and sharpened, gaining an edge of urgency as he watched the flood of code filling Eve's screens. Holding out her hands and pointing the pair of wires in them at Raven's arm, Eve approached him once more.

"You are convinced that it did not control you, but I have found something troubling in the code of that arm. Once I have tested it, I will strip away all of its code and write a new program to allow you to control its movements. I will not force you to go along with this..." For just a moment, her eyes and voice wavered and a faint desperation fell over her face. "But this code could be something far more dangerous than I originally expected."

Raven opened his mouth to agree, but his voice caught in his throat. Without warning, a sudden wave of terror washed over him and he froze. He could scarcely explain his sudden apprehension, let alone act against it. With the crippling, creeping dread slowly spreading throughout his body, he gritted his teeth together and glared fiercely at Eve.

"...Do it. Quickly."

Eve nodded and turned aside to Aisha. "Be prepared to restrain him at any moment."

"R-right..." Aisha held her wand out firmly, breathing deep and slow as Eve attached the two wires to the inside of Raven's left arm.

After a slight tingle, Raven suddenly felt his anxiety disappear as his terror receded into the scarlet shadows of the murky chamber. In fact, he felt remarkable. Why hadn't he noticed before? His body felt so light and powerful, he wanted to run across the plains and bound across the mountainside. His heart began to race as a strange, unearthly ecstasy flowed into his veins and his lungs filled to the brim. Abruptly, his eyes shifted around him and he glanced all around the room. What was he doing here? There was no time for this. Pointless tests and invasive operations weren't something he needed right now. In fact, he wasn't sure why he had ever thought to disable the weaponry of his nasod arm. It was powerful, and it was much easier to use than any blade. With that, he could easily tear through the hoards of enemies that stood in the way of his goals. As for what those goals were, he was having a bit of trouble remembering... A vague promise stuck in the back of his mind, something Rena had asked him to agree to... what was it... what was it that he promised her? Ah, that's right... To destroy the kingdom of Velder.

"Aisha, hold him down!" Eve shouted frantically and her voice ricocheted through the air like a burst of shrapnel. At her side, Aisha pressed her wand into the hard rock below, her hands trembling as the glowing chains around Raven's left arm began to creak and snap.

"I'm trying! He's just too strong!" Widening her stance, she held out her right hand and pointed toward Raven. "I'll have to knock him out."

"Wait!" Eve typed into her console furiously, stealing a glance up at Raven as he pulled against Aisha's chains and headed toward the doorway. "If you interrupt the code now it could permanently damage his consciousness!" She took her right hand off of her keyboard and waved it toward Raven, sending Moby and Remy out from her side and onto his arm. With Eve's drones and Aisha's magic, Raven was just barely held in place. His breathing became heavy and labored as a maniacal grin spread across his face, eager to break free of his bonds and return to the battlefield. With vacant eyes and trembling legs, he slowly pulled his nasod arm forward and Aisha's chains twisted and snapped.

"Please hold on! I will purge its code!" With wide eyes and an unsteady voice, Eve's fingers danced across her console while Aisha panted heavily, the last links of her binding circle crumbling into air. Just as Raven broke free and tossed Remy and Moby aside, a jolt of electricity shot through the two wires attached to his arm and he stumbled forward, falling flat on his face.

In the dim scarlet glow of the now silent cavern, Eve and Aisha stared cautiously at Raven's unconscious form. Waving her hand gently, Eve sent Remy and Moby to turn him over. Raven landed on his back with a loud thud and a sharp clatter as his nasod arm fell lifeless against the stone floor.

When he finally woke, he was laying on the operating table with a series of cords and tubes wrapped around his shoulder. Most immediately, he realized a sudden lack of sensation and he glanced down to his left. At his side, his steel claw and mechanical arm lay splayed open, their components scattered across a small tray at his side. When he tried to move his left hand, he found it cold and motionless, as though a dead limb were hanging at his side.

"Please do not try to move yet. I am still in the process of adjusting its electrical feedback." Eve stood at his feet, typing carefully and straightening the wires running into his left arm as she went along. From the other side of the room, a soft, lyrical voice floated past his ears.

"That's the third time we've had to tie you up, you know." Rena hopped off of a smooth rocky ledge and headed over to Raven's side and smiled gently. "Are you feeling any better? Ah, it sounds like I've asked out that a lot lately..." She laughed faintly as Raven squinted and shook his head out.

"What... what happened?"

"You have been unconscious for the past four hours." Eve moved around to his left and attached a pair of wires into his wrist. "After I reactivated the arm's core programming, it seized control of your consciousness immediately... I was not prepared for such a quick reaction." Eve averted her eyes, the faintest semblance of guilt marring her face. With the thick fog of his memory slowly clearing, Raven gradually recalled his thoughts and actions just before he fainted. The moment he remembered completely, the color drained from his skin and he clutched the side of his face with his right hand, his eyes quivering as his own thoughts became alien to him. A delicate warmth spread out over his shoulder as Rena placed her hand over his right arm and held it gently. Calming slightly, Raven lowered his hand and breathed out slowly.

"I can't..." He paused, gathering himself and his thoughts as the weariness of sleep faded from his bones. "I can't explain it... but you were right." He turned aside to Eve as she worked steadily, removing an old circuit from his arm and sliding a new one into its place. "It was like I was in complete control, I thought I knew what I was doing and that I was making my own decisions, but it-" His voice cracked quietly and he hesitated, still trying to sort out what it was that had just happened to him. Before he could make sense of it himself, Eve offered him the answer.

"The code in this arm was an adaptive control mechanism designed to manipulate humans. As a part of its base programming, it alters key neurological processes in order to change thoughts and impulses as it sees fit. In order to disguise itself, it then makes the victim feel as if their thoughts and actions were entirely their own doing. The reason you were able to resist it before is likely due to an error that developed over the course of its operation."

"You mean that... every time I gave an order, every time I killed someone in cold blood, I was just being tricked into thinking I was the one making those decisions?" Raven stared up at the ceiling, drifting back over every bloodstained soldier he'd slaughtered over the past three years. Even though Eve had just told him that he was completely innocent of his crimes, the weight of the lives lost at his hands remained.

"I had a feeling this would be the case though..." Rena closed her eyes in solemn reflection as she tried to count the number of lives lost because of such a small machine. "It didn't make sense that you were so willing to stop yourself and repent when you had been doing the exact same thing for years on end, and it didn't seem like there was anything big enough to cause such a huge change in your attitude..." She smiled bitterly as she stared off into the shadows, "There were only two possibilities really, that you were being controlled against your will, or that you were only feigning remorse. I know... you probably don't care to hear this now, but... I'm glad it wasn't really your fault."

"No." Raven raised his head as far as he could and propped himself up on his right elbow, his eyes glowing faintly with a bold determination. "It doesn't matter who made the decisions. It was still my hand that killed them, and even if it wasn't my fault, it's still my responsibility."

Rena suddenly felt as though a cool breeze had just swept across her face, swirling about and carrying off the lingering darkness that lurked in the corners of the room. Her hand slid from Raven's shoulder and fell to her side, swinging around behind her to meet its pair and embracing it firmly. "Are you sure?" Is what Rena said, although her tone and gaze made it obvious that she really meant 'I'm impressed'. "You've got a lot of trouble ahead of you if you decide to take responsibility for someone else's crimes..."

Turning aside to meet her eyes, Raven cracked a sharp, reckless smile. "If that's what it takes, I'm fine with that. If I have any chance at all to redeem myself, then I've got no reason to complain about what it'll cost."

For some time now, Eve had been glancing over her shoulder at a large, flickering screen hovering over her shoulder, her countenance falling as she scanned the lines of code running across its surface. Closing the cover to Raven's arm, she stepped away from the operating table and studied her console closely. A stirring silence swelled around her, drawing Raven and Rena's attention to the bright, flashing light reflected in her eyes.

Eve turned back to face them and when she spoke, her voice sliced through the stillness with a keen, frigid dread. "There is a greater danger here than the weaponized nasod we encountered."

"What do you mean? Did you find out something?" Rena moved around the table and looked on over Eve's shoulder, though she was largely unable to decipher the rapid stream of images flickering before her.

"Yes. This arm is not a prototype. It is a second series production model."

Raven scowled bitterly. "You mean this isn't the only one they made?"

"Exactly." Eve turned to her console and enlarged a single screen, revealing a detailed schematic of Raven's nasod arm. "If it's production code is following nasod standards, there were at least three hundred and thirteen produced before this one. It is very likely that whoever made them is planning to use them in a similar manner by capturing humans and attaching a nasod limb which will then take control of their consciousness. From the models I have run, the ultimate conclusion of the code used by this arm is always the same: To kill a great number of humans in major centers of population."

"Why..." Rena stared intensely at the soft glow of the screen above, her eyes piercing its frosted sheen. "What would anyone gain by making people kill one another? If the same person is making nasod for combat, then wouldn't it be easier just to manufacture an army and invade rather than kidnapping humans and attaching a machine to them?"

"It may be..." Eve paused as a startlingly unpleasant possibility came to mind. "It may be that the one responsible for this holds humans in great contempt. That could explain why they used the sovereign of Elder to steal the El crystal rather than stealing it themselves. It is obvious that they have the capabilities to do so, but they insist on remaining hidden and working indirectly..."

"Then that makes it simple." Raven's scowl faded and he breathed in slowly. "The one who bolted this arm to me is the same one who arranged the theft of Ruben's El and began producing nasod as weapons. We just need to stop that one person then."

Eve nodded. "It may be simple, but it will not be easy... And also, I have some idea of who might be responsible for all of this..."

"Ah~" Aisha fell forward onto her bed, her face landing with a great floof in the middle of her pillow. I used up way too much energy training Elsword today... and right after dealing with Raven too. I need a nap and... ah, I wonder if Eve's little robots would give me a shoulder rub? She'd probably never let me use them, so maybe I can trick them with some food or treats... What do robots eat anyway?

Aisha sighed and rolled onto her back, grabbing her pillow and squeezing it against her stomach. If she were being honest with herself, she would have been worrying about the El, about the nasod, and about the most obvious question of all: Just how would they get off of an island floating in the sky over the middle of the ocean? For today, though, she wanted to pretend they were somewhere peaceful, to relax and savor every second she had laying on a soft bed, eating warm food, even wandering around a lively town, despite the way the locals treated her. It suddenly struck her as an oddity, that she had been traveling and fighting so much since her exile that even a normal day spent in an inhospitable place felt like a grand luxury. What she found truly strange, however, was the fact that she didn't particularly feel like complaining about in the least.

With dinner already resting in her belly and nothing to occupy her time, Aisha rolled back and forth lazily, finally settling on her side and huffing as she hugged her pillow. Just as she was about to resign herself to rereading the appendices of her grimoire, the door creaked open and Eve entered the room.

Aisha sat up immediately and tossed her pillow aside. "How did it go?"

"He is mentally stable, if that is what you are asking. Rena is with him now, and he should recover completely by tomorrow morning." Eve waited for Remy and Moby to draw the door closed behind her before making her way over to the corner of the room. As she sat alongside her bed and opened her console, Aisha turned to follow her.

"What about you? You're okay, right?"

Eve paused, unprepared for such a question and confused by its very nature. "I-I am fine. Why do you ask?"

"Because, I was really worried leaving you alone with him when I ran to go get Rena... Even if he did pass out, I kept thinking he might wake up any second." Aisha shook her head out at the thought of Raven waking up, controlled by his nasod arm and on a rampage through the ponggo village.

Eve began to blush lightly, glancing aside to hide her face. "You were... concerned for my safety...?" Hesitating for a moment, she soon turned back to her console and began pouring over a small string of glowing screens. After typing furiously for nearly a minute, she paused abruptly, her eyes still focused on the displays in front of her as she spoke. "T-thank you..."

"Oh, sure..." Aisha blinked, surprised to hear a response after such a long, awkward silence. I was completely wrong... it's not getting any easier to talk to her! She turned to face the wall and her head fell back onto her pillow, leaving her to stare at the smooth stone ceiling and the stark shadows cast upon it. At least Rena's okay, and Raven...The image of Raven's crazed, bloodthirsty grin flashed through Aisha's thoughts and she cringed slightly. The very thought of being so thoroughly controlled by a machine, or by anything for that matter, left Aisha with a churning, sick sensation in her stomach. Before she could dwell on her discomfort, Eve's voice drifted across her ears.

"Aisha. Have you been to the country called Velder?"

Lifting herself back into an upright position, Aisha turned aside and crossed her legs, pushing her hands down into the bed just in front of her. "I went once, about a year ago, but I didn't stay for very long. Why?"

Eve waited a moment, considering her question carefully. "I wanted to know what sort of people lived there."

"Hm..." Aisha curled her lips in and searched her memory, finding little more than scraps and hearsay to offer as a response. "I suppose they're just like people living everywhere else. Most of them were nice enough when I was there, but it was just for one day, and I only talked to a few store clerks. You should ask Raven, he was born there, wasn't he?"

"No..." Eve pulled her hands away from her keyboard for a moment and stared blankly at her console. "It is not that important..."

Aisha opened her mouth to press on, but her search for words failed completely. Still not tired enough to sleep and not motivated enough to launch another attempt at conversation, Aisha looked around and finally settled on going over a particularly difficult chapter in her grimoire to pass the time. The moment she opened the tome and poured over its pages, however, a rather significant obstacle came to her attention. ...The light's way too dim in here to read anything. Using fire would probably be a bad idea inside a cavern like this too, especially since I'm pretty sure our pillows are stuffed with flash powder... Sliding a bookmark into her grimoire, she picked herself up and looked around the room for the corner with the best light. She found it, ironically, right next to Eve, where the glow of her console illuminated the area around her quite nicely. Steeling herself for an awkward encounter, Aisha picked up her grimoire and headed over to Eve, pulling a chair along behind her.

"Can I sit next to you? The light's too dim to read anywhere else."

Eve looked up from her console and nodded. "Yes. Go ahead."

Setting her chair right next to Eve's, Aisha sat with her grimoire in her lap and busied herself with a review of artificial atrophy and its practical applications. As she had feared, or perhaps as she preferred, Eve spent the next hour in silence and as far as Aisha could tell, she was completely focused on whatever work lay before her. As time dragged on, the excessive repetition of her grimoire and its incessant reiterations on formulae and sigil construction were fast becoming an excellent sedative. As she began nodding wearily, she shook her head out and closed her grimoire, setting it aside and smacking her cheeks lightly. Barely awake, she turned aside to Eve and promptly yawned.

"Aaaah~ ah... Thanks for the light. I'm headed to sleep now, so-" A surprising sight caught Aisha off guard. Sitting next to her, still straight upright and facing her console, Eve slept quietly, her eyes shut and her mouth slightly open as her breath escaped her as a faint 'coo'. "How long has she been asleep... Hey." Just as Aisha reached out to shake her shoulder, Eve slumped to the side and fell over onto Aisha's lap, rolling her head to the side and draping her arms across Aisha's legs.

After flinching for a moment, Aisha's shock subsided and she stared down at Eve's sleeping face. She wasn't particularly cold, as most machines were. She wasn't particularly hard or rigid, as Aisha had expected. More than anything, though, one significant measure stood out at Aisha relaxed and sighed softly.

Is she really a machine?...She isn't heavy at all.