A great deal of V's more mundane childhood memories took place against the backdrop of forests. A high bough wasn't enough to deter Dante, but it was more than enough to give Vergil advanced warning of an impending nuisance out to disturb his peace. They were both a haven and the boundary line between his home and the outside world. In the absence of any extended family that he could recall, he'd imagined their tunneled branches like attendants waving him off and welcoming him home every time he left and returned to the estate.
Trees similarly filled his memories from after the house had burned.
He'd let himself believe in the possibility of safety among humans just once. Her face had been blurred by time, but he remembered the kindly nature of an older woman. A maternal aura that he had not been able to resist as a boy whose last vision of his mother was her corpse. The woman had a family of her own. Sons of her own. All of them proved no more than soft meat before the blades of demons, and Vergil had refused to mourn them. Their deaths became another cornerstone of his rationalization that he could not rely on others. That death and loss were the natural results of weakness. That if he hurt at all, there was no one to blame and no one to help him, except for himself.
So, he came to know the trees in the solid roughness of bark at his back which was usually enough to block the sneak attacks of weaker demons. He knew them by the damp soil and decomposing leaves in half-rotted hollows where he huddled, secure that he was hidden yet still unable to sleep in more than scant dozes.
Most importantly, he came to know evergreens by the way their needled leaves scattered like shed fur at the slightest disturbance. By how they crunched under his feet and poked into his skin and how the smell permeated his hair and clothes with the nearest to a clean scent a child killing and eating demons and whatever else on the outskirts of civilization could get.
The air in the night kingdom's woods was crisp and odorless. Despite the high winds, not a single loose needle or errant cone marred the snow.
Theta joined him and followed his gaze to the nearest tree. "Thinking of making a fire?"
"No." He reached under the snow laden boughs and pressed his hand to the gnarled trunk. A suggestion of humming itched at his palm in slow waves akin to deep breaths. "The effort would only slow us down."
Theta accepted his technically truthful statement without pushback. Fern had seemed somewhat puzzled that there were trees in this part of the world, but for Theta they were beneath notice.
He pressed on along the graveled path, cumbersome goggles resting above his eyes in favor of relying on the silvery sheen of innumerable stars. "Were you born here, Theta?"
"Manufactured," she corrected, as though abashed of the concept of birth being applied to her. "It's not common for an android to know their exact production site, but I did undergo calibration here."
"And there were trees at the time?"
She peered aside at him. "Yes."
"Hm." He dropped the subject. If they were already there when she was made, it was to be expected that she wouldn't think anything of them even if she did realize they were not natural. She wasn't prone to excess curiosity that way. "How long does calibration take?"
"It varies. I was relatively unique for the period, so my calibration was an extensive process."
"And the same can be said of Hamelin."
Her mouth flattened. Though she said the same word, it came out with a keen edge this time. "Yes."
"Is that temperament of hers by design?
"It's probable," she said unbegrudgingly. "Personality can be difficult to predict in androids. Certain values can be adjusted, but often it simply creates a trait that stands out and may not mesh well with the rest of the emergent personality. Sometimes enough that the unit becomes aware of it and may even dislike it. Considering the contents of Hamelin's internal archive, I imagine a certain amount of her temperament is learned."
Griffon chuckled thick as the ooze of him slipping from V's skin to perch atop Theta's shoulders. "She learned to be the kind of android who creates monsters from humans who did it first, eh? Classy."
"Unpleasantness is permissible if it produces results."
"Hell of a tune change, little miss 'I can't believe you facilitated a rebellion for personal gain'."
"If you hear 'unpleasantness' and associate that with causing one of the most stable dayside sectors to go up in flames, I have been far too lenient about my assessment of you."
V wagged his cane with a subtle smirk. "Do not assume even a domesticated demon thinks as a human or android would."
"Duly noted."
"Don't make me sound like a house cat!"
She shifted the supplies higher onto her back, with a beleaguered glare at Griffon. "Hamelin is an invaluable resource when she's in her element or when she's consulted. But the more personally interested she gets, the more unpredictable she becomes."
"On the matter of this arm I might agree," said V. "But there is nothing unpredictable about Hamelin's personal interest in YoRHa. If you are wise and still wish to see your plans through, you will take steps to keep Fern and especially 9S away from her."
The seconds ticked by with the crunch of snow and gravel as the only sound, only to be interrupted by a small puff of laughter. "That was quite a transparent request."
"It was not a request. I believe it was you who specified that it's foolish to assume your goals align with those who make circumstantial allies of themselves? I've simply judged that your plans pose the more easily thwarted threat." He tapped her chin with the cane and spared a mirthless smile. "I hope you will do your best in my absence."
A two-note whistle parted the dense silence of the snowy woods. V pushed a finger to his lips and whistled back.
One encampment was never more than a few hours walk from the last along the known roads. Barring a turn in the weather—which thus far ranged from heavy snow to gusting winds to a precipitous drop in temperature that left V's bones aching despite the warmth radiating out from his left arm—they usually took one such trek every thirty hours or so. It gave Fern time to search out lakes.
This time, she caught up to them with an ugly, flat fish that looked like it had been swimming through crude oil all its life. Handing it off to V, she fell in step beside Theta and stretched expansively. "How much further to Roswell?"
"The site coordinates at the last outpost were 44°14'02.2"N 103°30'55.3"W. If the ones you're headed for are accurate, we're halfway there at best." Fern gave a long, laborious groan. "Not a valuable use of energy, 8E. We can start detouring to stay near water sources or focus on the fastest route. Given the high availability of vehicles, it wouldn't be a significant loss of time."
"I don't know about you, but I haven't seen a single map in any of these camps mark off reservoir sites. They don't need to worry about water replenishment with snow all over the place."
"Regardless, it bears keeping in mind as we near the equator."
V savored what heat the food could give him more than the food itself. The further inland they went, the less water there was, and Fern had begun to return empty-handed more often than not, forcing him to rely on the limited food Hibiscus had insisted on giving them. Today was lucky, so V consumed everything he could. Eyes, head, cartilage, organs. Even some of the softer bones. It wouldn't kill him, and he wasn't likely to vomit. The hard-won ability to keep down far viler foods had come from situations like this in the first place and was not easily lost.
Theta maintained her curiously avoidant response to his need for food, but Fern eyed him while he ate and eyed the hard spinal bones where he let them fall. "If you want to wait at the next outpost, I can probably grab another one."
"My thoroughness is not because I'm hungry now." He knelt to clean his claws on the snow. "It is in case I have to go hungry later. Do not go off alone if you don't have to."
"Theta's with you. You'll be alright."
That wasn't the point, but that didn't stop her from running back off into the woods before he could say so, leaving him staring after her into the dark.
"Let her go," said Theta. "She won't lose us."
Theta had always shown a certain respect for the difference in physical ability between herself and YoRHa models. Being assaulted had done nothing to intimidate her or render her more docile. The subject of Fern's future was conspicuously absent from conversation, but her mind had not changed. She knew Fern's track record. She'd kill another android with minimal provocation if it was for V, but when it was for her own sake, she could show just as much restraint as Theta. For being an executioner, or perhaps because of her experiences as such, she shied back from destroying others if it was only herself at stake.
Fern was the one who had changed despite being both the initiator and effective victor of the brief confrontation. She'd retreated entirely into her working persona. With the flip of some internal switch, she'd reclaimed that faux-jaunty, can't-be-helped willingness to stroll off into uncertainty that he associated with the early part of their summer travels. A smile equally careless and without meaning was never far away.
V began to understand the disobliged frown that used to come over 49 when he would watch her march away despite his invitations, suggestions, and even protests.
The days were rote—more so than the ones in the summer had been. They traveled to an outpost. Theta and Fern checked the camp's map. They hopped the first vehicle willing to go their way. Every two or three camps, they asked for updated directions. Every four or five, they walked. V slept in brief snatches of an hour or two at a time and walked for four or so out of any given day while Fern disappeared into the woods. At times under surprisingly bright starlight, and at others in a world turned neon green and black when clouds obscured the night sky and the goggles were all that separated him from total blindness.
He ate Pearl's salty-sweet jerky sparingly when Fern came back empty-handed and ate whatever his teeth could grind through when she didn't. More and more, she didn't. And though she maintained her lax façade, she began to disappear for longer portions of those journeys. Three hours. Four. Once a solid six that saw V and Theta waiting at the next outpost, having risked speaking to Pod 042 just to make sure her black box signal was still active. She'd refused to look at him when she came back, and he'd cut Theta's heated reprimand off to insist they press on without wasting more time.
The day came soon enough when there was only walking left. No road went to the coordinates 49 had given them.
The trees dispersed until they were only dark expanse in the distance, waving like the sea in the high winds. The occasional spotlight or radio tower for glowing like lighthouses. The way ahead lay white and bare, the starlight shining off the snow as sharply as glass between the sharp gusts. The temperature fell with their departure from the inorganic forest until the snow grew hard and packed beneath their feet and cracked like ice beneath their weight. They took shelter in the shadow of a massive oval spire jutting up from the snow. The remains of some structure V couldn't be bothered to think about. Fern and Theta exchanged words that the wind stole, and they moved on.
There was no path to follow. Only directions given by androids that had stopped appearing the moment they deviated from the known roads. For the first time in over two weeks, Fern stayed close to him. Half-obscured by whipping clouds of steam as she radiated heat against his right side.
As they descended a snowdrift, the ground rumbled. Snow cracked and creaked around them, and a drill-type machine bored through the snow and ice, breaching the surface and passing over their heads.
Fern darted forward, but Theta grabbed them both by the shoulder and pulled them away. "Don't fight! Move!"
The exposed core rose into the dark, shedding its ghostly golden glow on them as they stumbled and slid away. Suddenly, brighter lights joined it—the glaring red of twin flames exploding against the machine's side and nearly blinding V's dark adjusted eyes. He squinted against the fire and against a sharp scent like burnt ethanol.
A pair of dragons descended, biting and yanking the machine apart as if it were a mere snake caught between eagles. Metal screeched and gears ground, but they were background noise beneath the scratchy, synthesized roar of the weapons. By the fading light of the core and the fire, he glimpsed smooth silvery-gray scales and a flaring crest. Tails bigger than the rest of their bodies swayed in the dark.
V crept experimentally toward them. Splashes of oil stained their maws and they hissed and stomped at his presence. A threat display, but little more.
The red dragon was not silent, but its already nebulous impulses were muddy and ill-defined. It didn't appear to recognize the dragon weapons as any sort of kin. He knew that it could do so from its deafening, elated response at Gibraltar. They seemed as much like dragons to him as androids seemed human to it, yet it lurched without any recognizable emotion. Refusing to acknowledge them in a capacity greater than the mild consternation one might show a funhouse reflection they weren't terribly amused by.
"Stop!" Theta whispered, snatching his coat. "What are you doing? They don't bother androids that don't bother them, but they'll attack if you get too close."
"That seems an especially poor design choice."
"I don't understand the specifics," she admitted. "But they're programmed with certain predilections and left to their own devices so far as I know."
Fern stood transfixed. It wasn't until the last of the core's light faded out that she shuddered back into herself. "If they're that goddamn effective why are they only in the night kingdom?"
"Because their hostility against flying targets is high. They're designed to target and destroy alien mother ships. In this area of the world, machines have as much difficulty with the terrain as androids do so there are also a lot of drilling and flying types. Flight units and all-purpose carriers used in large-scale descents also ended up targeted by them."
V tilted his head, staring at the strobing glow on their crests. "…They are confined here."
"Yes. By the scrambler frequency most likely. That wasn't here when I was manufactured—it's a military installation from shortly after their deployment." She nudged her head off to the right of the pair, who seemed content to stay right where they were and play with their destroyed prey. "Let's go around. We should be close."
They knew what they were looking for when they saw it, simply because there was nothing else to see. Crumpled chain link fences and abandoned barbed wire surrounded a structure more forebodingly utilitarian than the warehouses of Sector H. A bar of fluorescent light buzzed above the sole entrance, a simple metal door coated in maroon paint with rust spots flaking through like dark brown rashes. A corrugated metal handle was all that stood between them and the other side. Only a gaping hole remained where there should have been a lock.
'Roswell Alien Lifeform Research Center', a shriveled sign announced against the black stones.
The inside was as empty as Briar's node, but the layout suggested a building that had, at least at one point, supported either human or android presence. There were disused lockers, hanging open and empty or sealed by long-rusted locks. Occasional fluorescent rods persevered against accumulated grime and dust and the sort of dark that only windowless buildings courted.
"Fern," V whispered. "Anything?"
She gave a slow, grim shake of her head. "There's something in here, but it's not like Gibraltar."
'Something' proved elusive. The only occupants seemed to be the abandoned folders and still-on terminals. Fern attempted to read one, but the image of green text on the black background had been burned onto the screen. Scrolling created a catastrophic, illegible mess of new text piled right onto the image of the old. What she was able to glean only managed to confuse them further. It was half-deciphered data from a language neither android had installed.
Panes of frosted glass in soupy greens separated the main hall from rooms larger than the small offices behind the few normal doors. Behind one, a room was filled with de-activated or depleted machine cores. Without the glow of activity, their shells had a slight translucence that betrayed a lingering dim flicker within.
Another lay entirely empty save a great white sphere an odd texture similar to an egg or a—
SEED.
If he had bothered to wear a glove on his left hand anymore, it would have burned away. He felt nothing and heard nothing, but the mere sight of the sphere provoked the dragon's low burn to a scorching heat. Fern flinched back from him with a grunt, while Theta snapped her head between them, poorly attempting to gauge who needed her assistance more.
"Calm."
With one eye still shut against the intensity of the dragon's reaction, Fern moved between V and the open door, where the voice had come from.
Scheherazade moved by them, paying no mind to Theta who gave her plenty of berth, or to Fern who bristled but did not immediately strike and placed a hand against the side of the seed.
"Silicone," she said mildly. "Alien alloy."
Ah. A replica of a seed.
While V focused on getting the dragon to absorb that and cool down before it burned the clothes off his back, Fern materialized her bladed fists. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"The woods," said V. "They're a part of Briar Rose. An extension of some sort."
Scheherazade nodded. "As Sleeping Beauty, so Briar Rose. A great tree, in a great forest, connected."
"Who else is with you."
"Alone." She looked up at the seed with a faint frown and stepped away from it, her attention solely on V. "You know the seeds."
He exchanged a glance with Fern, who shrugged. "I destroyed one."
"Not alone."
"It was a special arrangement." He flexed his claws and wagged the excess heat from it "For a special seed, I understand."
Her eyes dropped, lingered on something that only existed in her memory, and closed. From across a seemingly great distance, she spoke in slow, careful cadence, one word churned out at a time as if each was freshly and uniquely minted. "I am the hunter of seeds. This is my purpose, for thousands of years now. For your contact and sickness, my regret. No seed had appeared in the day kingdom since Jerusalem."
"Have there been many?"
"Many," she echoed gravely. "They are the white giant's curse. They whisper of love to humans and give them only salt and death. It is my gratitude to you that I come alone."
"You can't expect me to think you're here to help us," said Fern.
"No. This place is outside of Briar, but it is known. The red one you seek is not here and never was."
"It's all alien research," Theta whispered, her eyes traveling over the seed, around the room, and back to the corridor. "That's why it was being deciphered."
"Nothing more." Scheherazade closed the distance with steady, respectful steps that did not come too close. "It is best that you leave. I come alone—to ask that you do this."
"Something of a surprise." V crossed his arms. "Considering you don't agree that this world has no use for a shadowlord."
She gave a weak, warped laugh that made it easy to tell she went years at a time without hearing any, even from herself. "This is a stubbornness. Mine. A new shadowlord is pointless in a world where there is only you."
"And what happens to me?" asked Fern. "We already know what Briar is trying to do."
"Doubtful."
A bladed fist rose, its edge somehow less sharp than Fern's tone. "Briar is trying to manufacture a new human soul. And it thinks machine cores will work because they're replicated dragon's souls."
Scheherazade shook her head. "It is not simply the soul. The body is required as well. 'Using magic to fuse humans, machines, and plants together. This is the truth behind this world.' Those were the last words of Sleeping Beauty. The equation whose answer Briar seeks."
"Humans, machines, and plants..." V repeated slowly.
Sparks burst in the low light. Red and gold and spraying like sparklers as Fern's bladed fists made contact with a hastily raised barrier the size of Scheherazade's palm.
"For what?!" Fern roared, distortion lacing her voice with static. "Even if you take my body, my core, my memories—! Even if you take it all, you can't just build humans by fusing a bunch of shit together! They made us; it doesn't go the other way!"
"True."
Scheherazade snatched through the barriers and gripped Fern's wrist. She snapped forward and rolled Fern over her shoulders, twisting to whip her face-first to the floor. Fern managed to get one foot under her body to keep herself from being completely prone, but Scheherazade's unrelenting grip on her wrist and the quick placement of a boot on the back of Fern's neck kept her exactly where the older unit wished. Whatever order of magnitude stronger a YoRHa was than a standard model, Scheherazade was at least on par.
"Humans remain," she said quietly.
The claim bemused V, but he didn't miss the abrupt change in Fern and Theta. As though both had suddenly had the wind knocked out of them and replaced with ice.
"I don't…" Theta said haltingly. "I don't understand."
"Human personality data. Built into android systems from days when even I was only recently made. Our makers. Our command structure. Patiently awaiting results owed thousands of years ago."
"Of course. More ghosts." V walked in a loose circle with a low laugh applauding from the back of his throat. He almost couldn't believe it. "The willingness to combine body and soul with the unknown in order to escape death. To think Hamelin got her definition of 'human' so honestly. And they think they will be human? You think they will be human?"
"Are you different?"
"How lowly indeed to be weak and beg for power," V admitted, with scales creeping up his arm. "But gods who beg their creations to give up their existence so they may live are lowlier than worms."
"What right do you have?" she challenged with unexpected fury, her voice resonating on the stale air and shaking dust loose from the ceiling. "You take no responsibility for the effect you have on this world, and yet you judge it. You cannot fathom five thousand years hunting in the dark in the name of hope that is always on the edge of waning!"
The reverberation faded out and Scheherazade's temper with it. She stepped off Fern, leaving her where she lay.
"Humans remain," she repeated in a low murmur, her mask of infinite composure restored. "Unbodied in the sites of our assembly. The echoes of leaders from a dead age, guiding android kind into eternity if they must. There is much about meeting you… that I will cherish. But you are one outsider, while I heed the whispers of those who once called this planet home. I have my orders." In spite of everything, she bowed her head. "Leave with grace."
V wasn't sure how he was meant to respond to that. Every seething nightmare of defeat and confinement and not belonging to himself raced through his blood until he could taste it in his mouth and feel it in the scales crawling over his shoulder and lengthening to dark feathers that his answer was No.
Except the way ahead had ceased to exist. What Scheherazade was offering was his only way forward, and there was no way back. Theta was struggling just as much as he was to digest the situation, and even if she had more control, even if Scheherazade had not been here at all, where was she supposed to take him? Back to the city? To start this process over from scratch?
Fern laughed. Pitchy and cracked and pathetically tired in a way V hadn't heard since he first woke her to her own identity. She sat up and rubbed at the back of her neck.
"Do it, V."
"Fern…?"
"We're out of leads. And you're out of food. Even if we could do something about that, you'd just end up trudging around in the dark looking for something we're never going to find until the day you die." She climbed to her feet and ambled by him, patting his shoulder without looking anywhere near his face. "You've got a son waiting for you. Go home."
As she had so many times in the past weeks, she stalked away without waiting to hear him. But it burned him most of all that he could not think of a single thing to say.
Mere hours later, V's stormy silence occupied a different room with a less upsetting artifact of alien design in it. There was a node not far from where the woods ended, and Jorinde and Jorindel had been on standby to conduct the ritual. Through the blur of his own vexed headache, he heard one of them bark out that 'of course Hamelin had a way to ride the damn dragons, how else is anybody supposed to travel between Lizhin and the planet?'. Despite evidently being nearby, Hamelin did not make an appearance. The festival was left to the celebrants, whose dispositions had not been improved by the extended detour. They were quick to snap at everyone, Theta most of all.
"The fact remains that he is human," she said with all of her usual poise. "I'm obligated to secure him if asked."
"Not obligated to steal night kingdom equipment," Jorinde snarled.
"No. That stemmed from an unrelated matter related to a potential intel breach. I hope you'll pardon my indiscretion."
The answer was instant and in-sync from both. "Denied!"
Theta didn't seem terribly broken up about it.
Neither one of them was quick to come near him. Perhaps even they could sense that their cantankerous attitudes would make an excellent outlet for his own turbulence displeasure. Their attitudes with Fern were somewhat more complicated. They didn't know what to make of her sudden apathy, but they needed her as some kind of sensor—to help them confirm they were isolating him properly.
V busied himself rifling through their supplies as if there were anything he wanted or needed in there. All that was left was honey that had hardened to the consistency of candy and Pod 042, bundled up between a second resistance shirt and that ugly sweater. He ran a hand over the silver case, a dozen potential orders and requests fizzling out in his mind. In the end, he said nothing. Pod 042 even less equipped for this situation than he was.
"V," Scheherazade called. "It's time."
He took a deep breath that did nothing for him and proceeded to the designated area. Old desks and dusty terminals had been pushed back and papers allowed to spill to the floor to leave plenty of room. Fern took his right hand per the pair's rushed instructions, but he abandoned any thought that she might actually meet his gaze. It spared him the need for any clumsy goodbyes, but somehow the thought didn't bring him any relief.
On the other side of the cleared circle, two mismatched maces raised in unison.
The gravity in the room underwent an immediate shift. The weight of V's body deteriorated from the scope of his senses, leaving first a lightness and then a complete nothingness that left him unsure his mind was still tethered to his body. Or his body tethered to the world.
Sound reached him in muffled approximations of words. Bored, impatient questions. A bored response with an affirmative lilt, subtly choked by an emotion V thought he recognized. His vision had become a haze of gray and brown, pocked with white light, centered around the red stain of Fern's hair. Blue dots appeared. Ah. Her eyes. Of course, she'd look at him when he could no longer see her properly. Things might have gone differently if he'd been a little better at getting her to be honest. The skill came so easily to 49. The gestures of trust that the scanner had recognized and latched on to had only caused her to withdraw.
How was he meant to calm someone unreasonable enough to run themselves ragged in the dark for seven hours looking for a fish, as though he would starve that very day without it? He'd gone hungry before. Many times.
He was… (a voice on the edge of his senses and he wasn't sure where it came from or whose it was but there was fear)
Right then, he did feel… (stop, something's wrong!)
Hungry.
The world reasserted itself in a gust of cold that seemed to push through his flesh and grip tight to his bones. Cracked skin sloughed free as he slumped to the floor, scattering a halo of particles that used to belong to his form. He was hungry. He was so hungry he could not think, and his skin was empty, markings raising around his shoulders like the hairs on the back of his neck and the whole world was nothing but hunger and tastes—tastes of dust and oil and summer things where he was there and no, not that one, they knew that one, she was not for eating; and the not-twins were empty, their maces tasted like human hands had known them once but they were simply not enough.
He tasted words. Burned into false skin, into plates, into metal bones, so many of them all pulsing with power, with sound, with blood—
He tasted the remains of something that remembered was blood was.
"CLOSE IT! CLOSE THE—!"
The world went red.
Time repeats... Another ugly human with a wretched heart. Are you so weak as this? Rouse, fool!
Wind blew over V. There was a crackling and light—a fire? It was so warm.
No… it was hot. It was humid. The air smelled of rot and old meat.
He snapped awake and scrambled half-upright on raw instinct, only to collapse back to the ground with a splash. The eastern end of the research facility had been destroyed. The crackling was the pattering of driving snow that fell as heavy rain under the baleful radiance of a split in the sky from earth up into the clouds, spilling a spoiled heat and telltale stink into the air.
"Get down!"
Theta's weapons sizzled a hair's breadth from him, clashing against something metallic. He spun in time to see a creature covered in blue-tinted armor, with vibrant crescent-shaped blades erupting from its body. It carried a scythe in better condition than any Hell Caina he had ever come across and looked like no demon he knew.
But it was a demon. There was no mistaking the malice of it.
A familiar mercurial wire looped around the thing's neck and yanked it back from Theta. "UNIT GRIFFON, SUPPORT REQUESTED."
"Look away for one FUCKIN' minute—!" Griffon rushed forward and sank his claws into its armor, dragging it back and releasing a blinding shock. "Get it together, V! Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dipshit fucked up!"
"Evident by the hell gate," he coughed.
"Be nice if it was just that simple, but in case you haven't noticed, these ain't Underworld types. Look up!"
V squinted against the cold rain. High above, a trio of strange manta-like shapes barely lit by the glow of the gate soared through the air. Dragons converged on them to little effect. Three were dead before they managed to consume one of the demons with their fire. It split and popped in the air, releasing what had to be dozens of demons screeching and aflame like the contents of some awful egg sac scuttling vainly to escape the flame. The remaining two demons devoured the dragons—tearing them and exposing the dying sparks of their internal components to the sky in kind.
Those were not the Underworld's demons. The hell gate, torn rather than built, in a reaction magnitudes worse than anything maso had ever caused, was to the Inferno.
Theta bent raggedly over him. Oil stained one side of her face. "Can you stand?"
"Fern," he gasped, coughing again—choking on the disgusting air. "Where's Fern?"
"Gone," a steadier voice than Theta's answered. Scheherazade was coated in fluid too, but he could tell it wasn't oil.
"8E tried to hold onto you," said Theta. "You were right in front of the gate when we found you. She wasn't."
"REPORT," said Pod 042. "UNIT FERN'S SIGNAL HAS BEEN LOST. HOWEVER, BLACK BOX SIGNAL WAS NOT CONFIRMED OFFLINE AT THE TIME OF DISAPPEARANCE. HYPOTHESIS: UNIT FERN PASSED THROUGH THE DISTORTION."
Again, quite abruptly, V was faced with death. And this world, just like the one he was trying to return to, was faced with the consequence of suffering a son of Sparda to pass through it. The way forward now would not lead him to Nero, but it was there.
"What androids think of me…" He gripped his cane and shook the water from his body, climbing unsteadily back to his feet. "What they do to themselves and one another because they believe me to be a god… The responsibility for that does not lie with me. But this..." Lines gathered on his face as he gazed up into the ruddy sky. "I will see that this is undone."
"Is that possible?"
"Yes. The trick is for me to do it without dying." He pushed wet hair back from his face and took in the litter of unfamiliar demon bodies. "I'd propose you escape this place if you value your lives."
"This is an invasion," Theta pointed out authoritatively. "And that gate is a choke point. We can fall back and get help, but true retreat will only allow these things to spread."
"The commander fights. So to, do I" Scheherazade held out her hand. "My grimoire, and I will go with you."
"Grimoire…?" He looked down and was surprised to find the red tome clenched tightly in his claws. The bones cracked noisily as he released it and he tossed it back to Scheherazade. "Do as you will. But you aren't coming with me. No one is to go through this gate in my wake. And that is an order."
"Given my limited but very hands-on experience, I can't recommend walking into hell alone, V."
"No. But I must go in and I must have a place to return to if this will be corrected. You two are the only ones here. A commander who has fought demons before, and a relic who has hunted false gods for thousands of years. Make something happen."
They exchanged looks and as another dragon fell burning through the air, both took off toward the woods, leaving V alone with the portal. This was not a decision. It was merely the only way forward.
Fern's actions supposedly came from a longing for death. Had she been human, he would have accepted this at face value. But she so constantly warned him to understand her as an android that he couldn't help but conclude that she was lying. Perhaps more to herself than to anyone else but lying nothing the less. Penitence was a step more honest as her motive—possibly even hand in hand with the truth.
But he suspected he knew what lay at her core, as one beast knew another of its own kind. Between retrieving her or retreat, this was merely all that he could do.
V leaped.