Prompt: Meet Mica Sunborn, the rogue android girl who's a serious gun-nut (Girls' Frontline), and Hypergryph, whose crystalline antlers are a syndrome of the terminal disease that she's afflicted with (Arknights).
Once again, after a potentially fatal incident involving pudding, syringe and wound-sealing gel, Compa had been demoted to front desk duty. Planeptune General Hospital was surprisingly quiet and empty at these hours—probably because it was too early for people to get drunk yet, Compa mused as she stared out of the second floor window, fighting her urge to doze off.
It was a losing battle.
She didn't notice the pair of antlers poking into the open window, until the person had climbed into the hall, circled all the way to the back of the front desk, and patted her on the shoulder.
"Hello?" A pause. "Is there any adhesive in here."
"What?" Compa rubbed her eyes. "You mean...sticky stuff?"
Only then did she see the girl's face. One of her crystalline antlers was shorter than the other, and she was holding the broken tip in her gloved hand.
"Aww! That looks painful." Compa winced, and bent down in her chair. She might be on front desk duty, but she still brought her first-aid kit with her, just in case. "Here, lemme fix you up! What's your name?"
The girl flinched. "Please don't. I can do this myself."
"Ooh? I might be a nurse in training, but I promise it won't hurt that bad." Compa smiled at her, as she opened the kit, and took out a roll of bandage. "Be brave! It's gonna be over soon~"
"These crystals are sharp," Now the girl was backing away, frantically shaking her head, "If you cut yourself by accident—"
"I'm very good at dealing with sharp things! I've only poked others with it, never myself."
"—You are going to become just like me." She ducked down and slinked away, right as Compa reached her hands towards her.
"Huh? I'm going to grow antlers too, like a Pongmas reindeer?" Compa tilted her head. "That sounds cool. But I bet it'll make sleeping really hard and uncomfortable. I don't wanna destroy all my pillows."
"Yes, and you are going to die a slow, painful death when your inside starts turning into magical crystals." The girl said. "Let me borrow some glue, and I'll be on my way. That android is coming for me now, and I'd hate to get you involved."
"Are you getting chased down by an unkillable robot from the future?" Compa gave her a curious look. "Aww. I should have asked Ge-Ge if pumping liquid fire into syringes is a good tactic against robots. But I can defend my patients just alright, so don't be afraid!"
"Look. I don't have money to pay for a hospital stay." The girl sighed. "Just. Glue. I'm begging you."
Uni didn't often get her quest taken care of, before she even arrived at the scene.
Especially when said quest was a high-level mission concerning a base full of malfunctioning Order robots. As she transformed back to her human form, and stepped over the broken robot parts scattered across the floor, she couldn't help but feel a wave of frustration swelling up inside her chest.
Someone like Neptune might be glad about skipping a hard battle, but if she wanted to take a break, she wouldn't have accepted a quest in the first place!
Judging by the charred marks and the few empty bullet casings she picked up, the unknown intruder was quite fond of high caliber firearms and heavy artillery. Certainly not one for precision—Uni had to blast her way through some sectors where the defensive barriers and walls had completely collapsed, cluttering the hallway with fallen debris.
The first thing she saw, upon suddenly entering into a large, open hall, was the hole in the ceiling. The second thing was the thick layer of blue slime that coated the entire room. Uni's nose scrunched up at the distinctive smell. A swarm of Dogoo, or one giant Dogoo, must have died in here.
"Scanning Page 51...52...53..."
A faint muttering came from behind the generator at the other end of the hall. Uni readied her sidearm, and slowly inched her way towards the unknown speaker.
From where she was standing, she could see a carbine rifle propped against the wall. Then, a wire, extending all the way from the back of the generator to the girl's neck. Uni blushed a little at the sight of her naked torso—the girl seemed completely unaware that her jacket and short skirt were little more than rags now.
"Scanning complete."
The girl placed the book back into the strap on her stocking, and unplugged the wire from her neck. Uni caught a glimpse of her claw-like, metallic left hand, obscured below what was left of her sleeves—a prosthetic?
"Hey! What are you doing back there?" Uni stepped into view, just as the girl was about to pick up her carbine. "This abandoned Order base is off-limits to civilians."
"Sorry. The energy consumption rate of this arm in combat...exceeds my estimation."
"Are you the one who blew that hole in the ceiling?"
"No. My book got stuck in a Dogoo. The Dogoo crashed through the ceiling. The robots inside killed the Dogoo, and I killed them." A pause. "But the book survives."
"Really? That must be one engrossing book." Uni said. "Mind if I take a peek?"
The girl handed it over, without a word. Uni's cheeks heated up the moment she flipped it open—even the grainy quality and off-color pages couldn't obscure its subject matter.
"T-That's...eek!" She squeezed her eyes shut, before tossing the book back to the girl. "Okay, I get it...you really love hentai stuff. But maybe you shouldn't be reading an illegally copied version?"
"Illegally copied?" The girl asked. "Don't all human books look like that?"
"No! Have you never—oh. Androids. Can't believe I forget that." Uni frowned. "Wait, if you aren't a person in a robot suit, why would you find...human lewds hot in the first place?"
"I am merely analyzing them to gain a better understanding of my target, and increase the success rate of a lethal takedown." Her voice was as flat as ever, but Uni noticed her prosthetic hand clenching up. "Hypergryph's obsession with pornographic artworks featuring her 'cute little potato' will be her undoing."
Uni's eyes narrowed. "Oh, so you are an assassin? If so, you've made a real mistake by telling me, because I'm not just gonna let you go off and kill people."
"Even if she deserves it?" The girl said, without looking at her. "Tell me, Candidate of Lastation. Have you ever been betrayed before?"
Just when Compa thought the piece of antler wouldn't break off again, it fell onto the floor with a clang. Hypergryph muttered a very rude word that Compa didn't quite expect from someone like her, before picking it up and pouring another bottle of glue on the crystal. She was wobbling a little as she walked to the nearest bench, and sat down on it—must be the energy drink Compa gave to her.
"I shouldn't have trusted these Penguins and their 'logistic service'..." She sighed, as she attached the crystal back onto the stump. "It's the only way for someone like me to get onto this continent, but goodness gracious."
"You aren't from Gamindustri, Gry-Gry?"
"That's a...cute nickname! I wish I was," Hypergryph replied. "Speaking of that, my sweet nurse girl...have you ever wondered how people's lives are like, in those faraway places without CPUs?"
"Nope?"
"Bad, of course! We are like, galley slaves in all but name." Her voice suddenly gained a really chipper tone. "Okay, maybe not those PC Continent folks. T-Their technology is...too good, e-enough to ward off all but the worst natural disasters. No wonder their agency heads are a bunch of stuck-up pricks! Except for my cute little potato and red birb, of course! Ziri would look a-adorable with wolf ears and tails, don't you think?"
"I have no idea who you are talking about, but...yay? That does sound cute."
Her sudden change in attitude was starting to weird Compa out a little. The medical textbook didn't mention anything about people being allergic to energy drinks, right? Right?
"But, well, we don't have such luck. We can only hope that our Mobile Colonies can bail fast enough w-when the tsunamis...and meteors c-come, and who knows what kind of crap they dug out of the meteors to keep the Colonies a-afloat!" She giggled. "I-It sure isn't healthy, with all these radioactive slugs...and weird illnesses around the factory zones."
"Is that how you get your crystal infection thingy?"
"Pre~tty much." She shrugged. "Even after I s-snapped these antlers and put on a hood, they still caught me in the end. They might say it's all...quarantine and research, but after you'd been rounded up with the others, shot by their androids and dumped into the sewers once, it kind of ruins your trust...in their ability to keep promises?"
Compa put a hand to her mouth.
"H-Hey, don't give me that sad look!" Hypergryph raised her fist into the air. "I will find a cure for my disease, and I'll collect a lot of my cute little potato's lewds, and maybe I'll finally muster the courage to ask her out...if I don't explode into a cloud of crystal dust, or g-get shot by a murderous android first!"
She was now swinging her head back and forth, with a sheepish grin on her face. "I bet Mica has no idea how much a single bullet costs in the slums...she's basically just, shooting money at me, and it's really funny if you think about it."
"But the funniest thing is...Mica thinks we are friends, j-just because of our shared love for Ubi lewds! Ha ha. L-Like she can ever go against her programming, if her commanders...order her to fire on us again." Her voice suddenly faded to a quiet whisper. "She's just a mean little murder machine. But why can't I..."
"Well, once she gets here, she'd probably blow half of your hospital down by complete accident because that's how she rolls. Scary, right?"
Before Compa could say anything, Hypergryph dashed towards the open window, and leaped down the ledge. "Not gonna let that happen, though! Thanks for the energy drink! Ark Arts!"
A black mist burst out from her back, suspending her in midair and stopping her fall, before she sped into a blur. Within seconds, she had disappeared into the night.
Black Sister had to grudgingly admit, the android's marksmanship was inhumanely good, as if that carbine was an extension of her own body. If she possessed the same firepower, it would have been a much harder battle. But it looked like the android had exhausted most of her grenade supplies in the previous fight, and had taken on a defensive strategy as a result.
"Multi Buster!" She yelled, as she fired at the concrete wall. "Your cover won't last much longer. Give up!"
"Why are you taking the side of...someone you've never met."
"Hello? You said you are created to mow down people like her, and you guard her jail cell!" She groaned. "Maybe it isn't wrong for her to hate you a little? Because of that?"
"...She really thought I didn't know my commanders' plans. She really thought I couldn't feel." The android said, just as another chunk of her cover came crushing down.
"I'd have gone rogue for her. I was about to, before she blasted my old arm off." The wistfulness in her voice was soon replaced by a cold vengeance. "I've gone rogue now. But for a different reason. Sunborn Flash."
Black Sister took off into the air, the moment she saw an object being hurled towards her, but the scale of the explosion far exceeded her expectation. Half of the warehouse collapsed below her like a row of dominos, before the shockwave threw her backwards, nearly knocking her gun out of her hands.
When the dust cleared away, the android was nowhere to be seen.
Okay, since Ubisoft was doing a collaboration event with both Arknights and Girls' Frontline this year, I just had this idea of personifying their respective developers, Hypergryph and MICA Team/Sunborn Network.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the Chinese mobile gaming scene; the two founders of Hypergryph and MICA Team, plus a third guy, used to be friends, until said guy screwed over the MICA Team founder and went on to become the head of Hypergryph's EN publisher—which is a very simplified summary for the series of convoluted events that led to the bad blood between these two.
Perhaps they'll finally be brought together by the power of friendship and Ubi lewds in the end? I remember seeing a lot of "love triangle" memes when the event was first announced, though.
Fun Fact 1: Hypergryph's official social media account is usually pretty serious and no-nonsense, but there's this one time that their figurine making studio accidentally sent a promotional message using the main account, which was written in this super cutesy, chipper tone. Needless to say, it quickly becomes a fandom meme.
Fun Fact 2: Ubisoft's "potato server" is a much bigger meme in the Chinese gaming world. We'd literally call them "Potato Factory", much like how Tencent is the "Penguin Factory" and NetEase is the "Pig Factory".