Prologue

"Was this it."

A red-haired woman thought as she stared at the blank face of a machine that was revving up Its attack. Her sister lay away from her staring blankly at certain death not even trying to move away. It was the usual deal they were treated as pariahs by everyone, given the worst missions, they usually came back worse for wear but it was only a matter of time before they encountered death. Nobody would morn them they would probably be glad that the ones who destroyed their only chance to meet their creators would perish.

Popola closed her eyes accepting her death, at least their regret will finally end.

Fate however had other ideas.

Before the large machine could bring down his saw-like arm something struck it, a white sword cleaved through it as if it was paper, the man holding it disappearing before the arm could hit the ground reappearing behind the machine and cleaving through his midsection as easily as it did the arm, the mass of bolts hitting the ground before it could even put up a defense.

Popola opened her eyes, surprised that someone had come to the defense of two people who were considered the worst of the worst, she looked at their savior not being able to see their face due to the ragged cloak they wore.

"Are you two alright?" The voice was male and something about it made her flutter, it was an emotion that she never had almost as if she had found meaning.

"I-I…" her sister started to speak and get up, her eyes widening while she clenched a hand to her chest.

The man looked at both, sighing in what seemed like disappointment, and took his hood off. The two sisters stopped breathing when their eyes met the stranger not really understanding the why for this extreme reaction they decided to look at the ground instead.

"C'mon you two shouldn't walk around in that state." the man turned around allowing them to look back at him "I have a base not far from here, it should allow you to… make repairs or whatever it is that you do."

Grabbing her sister's arm Popola allowed her to lean into her so that she could walk, her left leg was crumpled up due to the attack of one of the machines. She didn't know why she decided to follow him but something about him made her follow his orders to the letter, had they been hacked the only other reason she could think of was something she wouldn't allow herself to even think about…

They walked in silence, the man either knew where the machines were or he had killed them off because they weren't attacked again considering they were close to the factory the former made more sense. They came into what looked like a crudely fortified building in the outskirts of the ruined city, opening the door he allowed the two sisters to enter.

The inside was almost barren only a table with two chairs, a futon, and a box what it had stored she couldn't tell. She dropped her sister in one of the chairs and started checking her leg, though keeping her eyes on the stranger who was tinkering with a piece of machinery.

"So based on her injury, I can tell you two aren't exactly human, so that begs the question what are you?" the man said not turning around.

This caused the two sisters to stop and look at him in surprise. "What kind of question is that, are you perhaps faulty did a machine hit you in the head." Devola exclaimed rather hotly her injuries making her more irritable.

The man dropped the piece of machinery and looked at both of them. "I've been looking at your camp for a while now and I can tell that no one there is human, actually every single human-like being I've seen until now is but a machine." walking forward the man looked down at both of them, she hadn't really noticed until now but he was rather big dwarfing both sisters petrifying them when they looked into his golden eyes "I have some questions for both of you, I wasn't really planning on meeting any of you until I had the full idea of the situation at hand but since you're both here I might as well understand what's going on."

While everything in Popola's being told her not to she still glared at him "Don't call us machines and stop doing whatever it is that you're doing, you won't be able to hack us."

The man's looked at her in confusion "I haven't done anything to you, I wouldn't even be able to hack you, to begin with." shaking his head he moved forward with the conversation "What happened to humanity? What happened to this world?"

The two sisters looked at each other before looking back at him "You truly don't know…" Devola said forgetting about the pain she was having.

"Humanity has been wiped out, whatever is left is on the moon base." Popola continued not really wanting to go into detail over what happened "I don't know exactly what happened to you but we were built to fight in this never-ending war with the machines."

The man looked taken aback "Humanity is lost…" they saw his hand clench "The machines are those things outside huh."

Seeing him in distress made her want to comfort him. Why was she feeling this way, she could stop herself from doing so but only just. At the back of her mind, she dared to have a suspicion, based on how many questions he had and that he knew so little, her directives were all jumbled by just being near him, almost as if she was built to follow him almost as if he was…

Daring to hope and without even determining if her sister thought the same she decided to bite the bullet "What are you?"

The stranger looked at both of them and sighed "My name is Emiya Shirou, and I'm human."

Both sisters gasped "How are you here, how did you survive?" they both spoke in unison almost in reverence, tears leaking out from their eyes something that went unnoticed to both of them.

"No idea, I woke up here some time ago, can't exactly say how long with the sun always up." Shirou said with frustration clear in his voice.

Popola suddenly grabbed his hand "what are you doing." ignoring him though she checked for a pulse, giving a gasp when she felt it she suddenly started bawling her eyes out while grabbing his hand with both of hers, her sister hugging her from behind. Shirou simply looked at them surprised.

"Why are you two...?"

"Please forgive us." Popola said while crying.

"Forgive you?" Shirou asked not really understanding what was happening.

They just continued crying, Shirou kneeled in front of them. He couldn't make heads or tails as to why but even if they weren't human they still looked like one and he couldn't really deal with someone in such pain in front of him, he decided to let his suspicions die down for now at least.

The sisters' eyes widened when the human took both of them in his arms hugging them close, their arms going around him after a bit. They still felt the crushing regret they were programmed to have but this lifts it somewhat.

They stood there for a bit "Have you calmed down." feeling their nod Shirou stood back up, he decided to be calmer with them, less making this into an interrogation and more of a conversation. "Why are you two asking for forgiveness?"

They looked at each other "Our line of androids were in charge of a project meant to revive your species, but we… I…" Popola started talking but couldn't keep up for long.

Devola put her hand on her sister's arm and continued "Another one in our line failed in her mission and was responsible for the failure of the project."

"I see." Shirou looked at the ground and stared at nothing, after a while, he shook his head "This is something else." he looked at the sisters before smiling "I'll let you stay as long as you want so that you can deal with your repairs, alright."

The twins were confused where was the rage, the hatred "Aren't you angry at us we failed our creators, we failed all of you." Popola asked.

Shirou looked at both of them "I don't fully understand what happened to both of you but I know from what I've seen that you not only regret something that wasn't your fault but that you tried your best, that's all you can do, in the end, you can't save everyone."

"We couldn't save anyone." Devola said.

Shirou knew that trauma like that wouldn't be something that would leave them with a few words even if it came from a human. Hell maybe they never were he didn't know how androids differed from humans on an emotional level they might never get past it, besides he couldn't help them when he was still thinking about this world. It still hadn't hit him that he was the only human in it and the only thing keeping him from a panic attack was that there were other people still, at least from what the two told him.

"This is quite the mess, correct me if I'm wrong androids were built to fight these machines right." seeing their nod Shirou continued "So all of you are my allies."

"What do you mean?" Devola asked in confusion.

"I'm going to make this place safe again for everyone, if nothing else that's my mission."

Both sisters looked worriedly at him "But you're human you shouldn't be fighting to begin with, actually, how were you able to fight? You were so fast."

Shirou didn't know how much information he wanted to tell so he decided to be as basic as possible "I use magecraft,"

Popola's eyes widened "You know old-world magic, incredible."

Shirou looked surprised at the mention, but it gave him a way out of giving more info than he was comfortable doing so, so he nodded. It would be something he had to look into just like the rest.

"I'll give you girls some privacy, this conversation honestly took a lot out of me and I think I need to think for a while." he said standing up about to leave the room.

Before he could though Popola stopped him "Take us with you."

"Where do you want to go, is it really safe for both of you to go out like this."

Popola shook her head "No I meant please let us accompany you from now on." she begged him "We were built to preserve humanity, it would make us… happy if you allowed us to do that for the first time in centuries."

Shirou looked at Devola seeing her nod as well before sighing "It's going to be dangerous."

"That just makes us want to go with you more." Devola spoke this time.

Shaking his head "I'm going to need a guide anyway." crossing his arms he made a gesture for the sisters to talk "What's your names?"

"Popola."

"Devola."

Looking at both of them he gave them a smile "Well then let's make this world a better place shall we."

So I was playing through the nier games namely replicant and this story couldn't get out of my head, I scoured nier's fanfictions but at this point I read them all so I decided to give my own try on this series. I'll explain a bit later what happened to Shirou and why he is here, even though he himself doesn't know it. As for timeline, this happens a bit before automata.

For anyone waiting for A fake knight update it should come next week, I decided to give myself a bit of time off.

This is mostly a side story not really something I'm going to be working on as a fake knight, whenever I have the time I'll update it though if anyone enjoys it at least.

Edit: I tried to clean up the chapter a bit.