Protector of the Carja Chapter 15: Modulating, a horizon zero dawn fanfic

Chapter 15: Modulating

Marad knelt low in the tall grass, watching as his beloved city sat in the distance, the bridges and entrances still smouldering. He and some surviving vanguard managed to escape the invasion once they realized they were outgunned, but he still couldn't figure out how they had done it. They had come out of nowhere. Out of the blue, Eclipse soldiers appeared, slitting guards' throats, blowing up bridges, and capturing prisoners. The fight was short and fruitless. Having had no time to prepare, they had to run while they could.

The small group traveled East as far as they could. When they stopped to make camp, nerves had loosened a little. They had made good distance from the city, since they did not have time to gather as many supplies. While some men went hunting for boar and turkey, others set up tents and a fire. Marad sat huddled with Smot and Lider, the current ranking officers.

"Our first objective should be to find the Sun-King. Ideally, Erend and Talanah have found him and Aloy by now," Marad stated flatly.

"Ideally?" Smot questioned. "Not much about this situation has been 'ideal' if you ask me… sir." He adjusted himself to appear a bit more respectful once he realized that Marad was the authority in this ragtag group.

"Even so, we must -" Marad halted, having heard a rustling behind him. He drew a dagger and turned, hearing the two vanguard officers standing and drawing their weapons as well.

"Is that any way to greet a lady, Blameless Marad," a sultry voice called out. Vanasha stepped into the light cast by the moon with her hands up in a non-threatening pose.

"Vanasha!" Marad sheathed his dagger and gave a respectful bow. "My apologies. You were probably the last person I expected to see here."

"I have some rather unfortunate news, Marad," Vanasha said, getting straight to the point.

"As do I."

Aloy roughly tied the cording she used in her manufacturing of arrows. As she sat on a rock by a campfire near the Northern Embrace Gate, her mind raced with all of the different things she was worried about. As she tended to do when she was alone and needed to focus, she mused aloud.

"APOLLO is online, at least. That was easier than I thought, but I should be able to connect him to the Tallneck network and communicate with him directly wherever I am. That's the closest objective."

Aloy mixed up a formula for fire arrows as she continued to her next thought. "I still have no clue what happened at the border. It looked like it was just a machine attack, but it looked almost intentional. The Matriarchs at least know about it and have alerted the braves. I don't think anybody caught on about Avad, so if he was the target, he should be safe."

A pang of guilt shot through her chest. She was asked to keep Avad safe, but she had left him. Granted, he knew from the start where her priorities were, but she couldn't help but feel that under different circumstances they would still be traveling together.

She stuffed her newly fashioned arrows into her quiver, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. "Apollo is the key to repairing GAIA. I don't know if I can truly eradicate HADES, but maybe by repairing GAIA, I can shackle him again. I wish I didn't have to rely on Sylens to figure that out… I wish Avad didn't have to rely on me to keep Meridian safe."

Aloy pushed herself up and lifted her fingers to her lips. With a quick whistle, her Strider galloped near, and she hoisted herself up over its back haunches. Before she could launch out, she heard a voice calling out to her. Another distraction, she complained silently.

"Aloy, wait!" It was Teb. Timid to the last, but gentle, friendly, and always trustworthy and loyal. His usually friendly demeanor was now solemn, and that caused Aloy to turn her full attention to him.

"Aloy," Teb panted as he caught up to her position. "I'm glad I caught you before you left. The High Matriarchs have sent a contingent of warriors to the border to aid the Carja in protecting and defending the tower. They leave later today."

She raised a curious brow. "Okay," she paused. "That's not why you chased me down, is it?"

Teb shook his head quickly. "No, no. I came to tell you that Erend Vanguardsman and Sunhawk Talanah have arrived. They've been looking for you. They are leading the warriors to Daytower, and any willing volunteers have been given the Seeker blessing in order to continue with them to Meridian to aid the Sun-King."

Aloy laughed darkly. "Looks like he got what he came for," she said under her breath.

"What was that?" asked Teb.

"Nothing." Aloy's Strider snorted and shook its head. "Tell Erend Vanguardsman that I have a personal mission I must attend to. I won't be able to accompany them until that is complete."

"O-oh. Okay, then." Teb stuttered, having expected Aloy to rush off again to save the world. "Is there anything I can do to help, Aloy?"

The red-haired huntress sighed deeply, genuinely evaluating the situation before she answered. "Actually, Teb, there's somewhere I need you to go to find out how to make more of this kind of armor." She gestured towards her armor, which was a mixture of Nora leather and Ancient barrier technology. She reached into her pouch and pulled out an extra Focus she had stolen from Eleuthia-9. "Take this, put it on your ear, and learn how to use it. You know the ruins to the north?"

Teb caught the Focus she had tossed toward him, then nodded, "Yes, but -"

"You need to go down there. I've already been down there and unlocked everything. Activate the focus and tell it to read the glyphs to you. That armor could make a huge difference for Nora and Carja alike."

Teb nodded enthusiastically. "Thank you, Aloy! The Goddess be with you." He half bowed to her and sped off back to his destination.

Aloy turned her Strider and made her way along the path. Not long after, she turned to see a metal flower she had missed before. Curious, she went to collect it. As all other metal flowers she had collected in the past, it gave a curious bit of poetry when it was scanned:

[function: true]

Devil's Thirst proved to be unchallenging, to say the least, but that didn't comfort Aloy. There seemed to be a distinct drop in the number of machines she had seen in the wilds on her journey in the past few days. Given the sheer number of machines she had seen bombarding Daytower, she wondered where they had all gone.

"Count your blessings," she said aloud to herself. She hopped onto the Tallneck as it stomped passed and began her ascent. Once she reached the top, she tapped her Focus. "APOLLO, are you there?"

APOLLO's hologram appeared before her, standing behind the access port on the Tallneck's disc. "Yes, I am."

"Alright. So, you're saying that if I adjust the frequency of the Tallneck's communication array to the numbers you gave me, you should be able to connect to the Focus network?"

"Eh, well," APOLLO started. "After a fashion. In essence, we would be creating our own Focus network. Individual Focus units would need to be tuned to our frequency in order to communicate over secured channels."

Aloy shook her head, not fully understanding. "Whatever. Let's do this." She connected the master override device to the port and the holographic display popped up. Waving her hands through the air like a maniac, Aloy finally found the right combination of symbols and glyphs to do what she wanted to do. The display dissipated, and Aloy sat back on her haunches, waiting for APOLLO to say something. "...Well?"

"Yes, I see, now. The device to which you referred should be sufficient to act as a core for GAIA once repaired."

"Can you connect to Cauldron Sigma?"

"Yes. The Tallneck's communication range is quite impressive. I can store the blueprints for the GAIA mainframe in the Cauldron core as you suggested. I may need some time to reconfigure the data language."

"Of course," Aloy was about to get sick from sitting on top of a walking Tallneck, so she rappelled down and started pacing. GAIA created the cauldrons. Specifically, HEPHAESTUS. It wouldn't be exactly the same language as APOLLO, which was directly built by the Old Ones. Aloy stopped and ran her fingers through her hair, heaving a sigh. "How long is it going to take?"

"I estimate three days' time."

Aloy held her forehead, making calculations. "Of course. That should be more than enough time."

Aloy stretched her body and heard her spine crack in a few places. She stretched from side to side, then called for her Strider. In half a day, she arrived at the now abandoned Banuk encampment near the Grave-Hoard. The structures were still standing, but the Banuk had moved on. It occurred to her that having these empty buildings was a breeding ground for trouble, so she dismounted and readied her bow.

Hidden among the trees, Aloy activated her Focus. Surely enough, multiple orange figures appeared in the distance. And, like a flame to a forge, a blue figure crouched a few meters away. Aloy had no choice. She had to get to the artifact, and to do that, she had to get through the bandits. Working with Nil would only make the job faster.

Quietly, Aloy's feet whispered through the woods until she was crouched behind Nil. "Not very often I get to sneak up on you."

Nil barely moved, though his posture straightened ever so slightly. "You assume that I didn't expect you to arrive at some point."

Aloy sighed. "I'm not surprised you're here, either. But once again, we have different goals in mind."

Nil turned toward Aloy. They were so close that the feathers on his helmet brushed over the tip of her nose. "Aloy of the Nora. Protector of the Carja. I am but your humble servant. Your objective is my own." He gave a half curtsey, as much as he could do while crouched. Aloy rolled her eyes. "I've been scouting this bunch for a few days now. I couldn't help but notice a few choice weaknesses."

Aloy shook her head and sat on the ground, leaning her back against a tree. "Just how long have you been in Nora territory, Nil? Weren't you just in Utaru land not too long ago?"

"Well, once we dealt with the scum down there, I figured I'd find another good place to squat and wait for the squalor to come fill it."

Aloy's brow knit together, trying to figure out if she should be disgusted by his wording or not. "That - that's not what I asked. You must have come straight here right after we said our goodbyes. Which trail did you take?"

"You know I'm fast on my feet, Protector."

The fire that usually smoulders in Aloy's heart suddenly burst out. She stood quickly and grabbed Nil by the gaudy vest he wore, pulling him up and pinning him against a tree. "Don't avoid my questions, Nil. This is too convenient for you to just magically be here. Who are you working with, and what are you trying to do? What do you know?"

For the first time, Aloy saw fear in Nil's eyes. Only for a split second, but it was there before he concealed it. "I promise, Little Nora, I don't know anything worth getting you this riled up, and you already know I don't work with anyone. Except your pretty face, of course."

Gritting her teeth, Aloy shoved Nil to the side and walked back to where she left her bow. She angrily snatched it up and pointed the end at Nil. "Let's get this over with. But I'm watching you."

"I thought you'd never ask," Nil grinned.

The two of them swiftly made their way into the camp, flanking the main area. Nil snuck up behind a man relieving himself in the tall grass and slit his throat. Aloy slung an arrow towards the watchtower. The woman who had been on watch duty fell lifeless onto the ground and alerted the other bandits.

Nil watched from the grass as Aloy made her way through the mass of fighters, single handedly taking the majority of the bandits down. His bow, The Voice of Our Teeth, assisted her sparingly. Few bandits noticed him from his perch. Watching Aloy plow through a group of enemies was almost as satisfying as doing it himself, and he couldn't help but enjoy the novelty.

With the last bandit down, Aloy surveyed the area, expecting Nil to be long gone. Her insides jumped when she felt hands sliding gently around her arms. Before she could turn, Nil's hands found her wrists and tightened around them, pulling them behind her and holding them both with one hand. His lips hovered beside her neck, and with his free hand he held her hair. "You fight so much better when you're riled up, Huntress. I wonder, who's the lucky guy? It couldn't possibly be the great and mighty Sun-King, could it? There have been rumors, you know. People aren't too happy about him appointing a Nora as his champion, but if you ask me, I think he just likes watching you from behind."

Aloy struggled to move, but found it difficult. "You couldn't be farther from the truth. Get your hands off me!"

Nil released her, and she quickly turned toward him and backed away a few paces. "I see I've hit a sore spot. How fascinating. I wonder where good old Avad has run off to this time? Now there's a hunt I'd like to be a part of."

Aloy was about to walk away, but she stopped cold at his question. She turned back to him, grabbed her lance firmly, and pointed it directly at his heart. She slowly advanced on him until he was pinned to the wall of an empty shack. "I am only going to ask you one more time. If your answer isn't to my liking, my response won't be to yours."

"You sure do like foreplay, Huntress," Nil smirked, holding his hands up in mock surrender.

"SHUT UP!" Aloy yelled. Her voice echoed in the mountains. She closed her eyes and took some deep breaths to calm down. "What. Do. You. Know."