Gold and Blue

"Holy shit." a young-looking woman exclaimed the cloth around her eyes hiding her emotions, her voice however expressed every bit of her surprise at the image in front of her. "How in the hell did this happen and how did we not notice it."

An older-looking woman approached her from behind, her face showing little emotion not even a twitch as she surveyed the ruined complex "Your reactions are noted 12H and unnecessary, we have our mission and we can do it without opinion."

The younger woman looked upon her captain in exasperation even behind the blindfold it was clear she was rolling her eyes "What mission? Can you even tell what happened here?" She waved her hand towards the complex as if presenting it "It's like the machine apocalypse, hell there isn't even any weapon other than machine ones here." She stopped talking for a second as if in thought "You think this is the work of red, 1D?"

Red, the name given to the colored paintings they had seen on various machines holdings and by some accounts by resistance androids. Their mission was to find said being, with little to no success, they usually found themselves surveying the aftermath of whatever it did. Not even talking about how little the androids that have been in direct contact with It have said. It has only been a few months since they were given this mission but already it could go to hell.

Sighing at her subordinate 1D looked upon the pod at her side "Contact the bunker they'll want to know what happened here."

The little pod brought out a hologram showing a small loading sign, after a few seconds the image of the stoic commander appeared on the screen making the two girls stand rigidly awaiting instructions to talk.

"1D, 12H were you able to gather any more information on our target." White said in an authoritative voice.

The two female androids looked at each other before 1D stepped forward to answer her "Not exactly ma'am, but we were able to talk to a resistance member that had recently been in contact with our target."

White narrowed her eyes making the captain tilt her head down in deference "And?"

"Well based on the information red was recently in a battle near the complex we have approached the location but we have found little more than the wreckage of various machines."

She heard white sigh as she stood a little straighter waiting for her commander to talk before continuing "We have already seen the aftermath of his battles, I would have expected more information to be brought to us when you contact the bunker directly." white said rather brusquely her eyes almost glaring towards her fellow androids.

12H gulped taking a step back and allowing 1D to take the brunt of her commander's attack, her companion on the other hand simply stood with her usual stoic demeanor "Well ma'am based on the number of machines killed I believe we have underestimated our targets combat ability."

White thought for a second, It hadn't been the type of information she wanted but knowing a possible enemy's full capabilities are better than nothing. "Very well the operators will begin to review your information. On an unrelated note, your mission will remain on standby until further notice, return to the bunker where you will be briefed on your new mission."

The two androids looked at each other in confusion, they had been given a priority mission by all accounts and now they had to stop? Something big must have been found. "Very well ma'am." 1D said as she put her hand on her chest "Glory to mankind."

The call went off a second later and 12H went from rigid to sighing in frustration "Never really a moment off, huh? What do you think the new mission will be about ONE?"

1D simply remained quiet appearing deep in thought before turning around and walking back in direction of the desert not even bothering to answer her fellow android. 12H watched her partner leave and looked down at one of the machines kicking it slightly so that the eyes are visible "I know emotions are prohibited and all that but you should at least try to be nice, don't you think so too Mr. Robo?" She huffed when the half-destroyed head didn't give her an answer, standing back up she gave one last kick to the head breaking it into pieces when it hit the wall of one of the buildings.

(Bunker)

White closed her eyes and started rubbing her temple, everything had gone to shit all of it revolving around whatever this new being was, she opened her eyes once more to review the information they gathered, not a lot height, sex and that's about it whatever sighting or account given to them by other androids merely mentioned what it did rather than anything that could actually help in making a profile they had contacted their biggest sources in the resistance namely Anemone and Jackass, the former having no contact with it and the latter being rather dodgy whenever the topic came up but being far too important of a scientist for them to actively interrogate, though she did say she didn't know much about him she actually sounded rather frustrated when saying it. Machines had gone into the offensive seems whatever skirmish they had with this thing was a bigger deal than they had initially thought and while it didn't take long for the cold war to return to somewhat normalcy the machine lifeforms had become more active than they had been for hundreds of years, making Yorha have to take precautions and become as active as they are essentially being one step away from a full-blown war.

What was it exactly that made the machines fear it, It was strong from what she could tell but that alone meant very little, they needed to make contact with it… and its two companions, White let out another groan as she remembered who exactly they were. The twins out of everyone it had to be them, why were they even following it…

"Ma'am the team is ready for debriefing." An operator said, her voice clearing some of the doubts from her mind. This was no time to think about the multitude of possibilities, her fellow androids needed her.

"Have you contacted 2B? I want her on the mission and to rendezvous back with 9S, he should be researching on the mission grounds right now, it would do us good to put the two back together for their next mission." White said as she turned to face the operator.

"Very well ma'am, I will contact 2B and give her the new instructions." The operator gave her the signature Yorha salute and started walking back to her desk.

White watched the operator go as she leaned back into the railing, she remained strong while talking but her eyes showed exactly how old she was as she turned back to the large screen, watching as her fellow androids become nothing more than statistics and mission successes and failures. Keeping up hope, making sure the mission continues was paramount... despite how much the weight of it kept her down, despite feeling that everything she did was useless, she had to keep moving forward no one else could do this after all…

(Shirou)

"Catch me Shirooooooou!" Devola said giving her sister a cheeky smile who to her credit move to grab her reacting far too late.

Shirou sighed and looked up at the now incoming redhead with an indifferent look on his face he wasn't exactly surprised at her antics nowadays. They had been using the trees to oversee the general area, from what he gathered it had been a while since any android stepped foot in the forest. They spent the last few hours scraping around, destroying a few machines, and just sightseeing after making sure that there had been no attacks made on the androids running around the city though considering the amount of combat able androids that now were escorting the resistance members he didn't have to worry, seems Yorha had taken hold of the issue.

His reasons for visiting a place that was mostly machine territory weren't really that important his two companions wanted to give a little distance to the now Yorha infested city so they took him on a mission of their own making, the sisters needed a few items that existed in the forest, honestly though watching the two walk around playfully he had doubts that they needed to get this far away, it was more probable that they had simply wanted to visit this place with him, not that he minded of course, the views had been quite breathtaking and it was nice to see an area where he didn't have the image of what remained of a once-bustling society always in front of him something that he needed more than he knew. It would have been almost therapeutic if it weren't filled with machines, who were weirdly wearing medieval-like armor.

At the last second before she fell on him, he stepped to the left letting her hit the floor with a thud, he heard a groan from the woman on impact.

"You know anyone else would be happy with a beautiful girl like me just appearing in their arms." Devola said as she looked up to Shirou who was giving her no pity.

"Is that before or after their arms are ripped from their sockets due to your weight." Shirou looked at her with a deadpan expression on his face.

Devola patted her clothes off of any dirt and looked unamused "Really? Now you're calling me fat huh, you know you shouldn't do that to a lady, right."

"Don't worry I don't." Shirou looked on amused at their back and forth, Devola had a way of getting him going in their conversations something he lost after being alone for so long. His life ever since that calamity had very little in terms of meaningful interactions with people.

In a way she had become the heart of their little group, Shirou had a tendency to stop talking and leave himself to his own thoughts and Popola was too motherly and always worried about him for them to talk on the same level most of the time.

She continued to smooth her clothes but stopped after understanding the statement, giving him a rather nasty look because of it, before relenting "Walked right into that one, huh." She muttered with a frown on her face.

Walking past him she gave a cute "hpm" turning her head away from his smirking face walking haughtily before looking up at her sister "You coming down or what Popola." she yelled at her sister who was still making sure the area was safe.

"Yeah yeah I'm coming." Popola started carefully going down the tree though not careful enough to notice that one of the branches she was using as support buckle under her weight, breaking moments later. There wasn't really any cause to worry after all even at the top of the trees they could safely jump down without even a bit of damage still the little scream of terror that instinctively erupted as she processed the lack of footing was enough to alert Shirou and he ran to catch her.

He managed to grab her in his arms through grunting slightly as gravity and weight pulled on his strength before regaining himself, Popola now resting safely in his arms. She had her eyes closed fully preparing for impact a few seconds passed before she noticed she wasn't free falling anymore her left eye slowly opening as her face went red as she figured out what had happened though not exactly trying very hard to break free from Shirou's arms.

Devola on the other hand remained unamused with the overall situation "Well I guess we found who the favorite is." she muttered before angrily stomping towards the duo. "Okay lovebirds time to get off each other."

"Eeeh lovebirds?" Popola scrambled from Shirou's arms as she heard her sister "No need to get mad that he didn't bother to catch you." she angrily crossed her arms and glared at her sibling though the image was made less serious by the heavy blush still on her face.

"Alright you two let's go, we shouldn't really stand around in the same place for long." Shirou said as he tried to calm down the sibling war that was brewing, when he noticed that they still continued he sighed and used the last weapon in his arsenal to make them calm down, himself.

The two were now butting heads still glaring at each other before noticing the lack of a third member near them, looking around they saw him slowly walking away deeper into the woods. They looked at each other before sprinting towards Shirou.

"Jeez, Shirou don't go without saying anything." Popola said as she quickly took her place on his right Devola nodding along with her sister, she had a slight pout on her face though that was probably to make herself look cuter than anything else, they probably thought he got angry at their antics.

He wasn't of course, he knew that they weren't really mad at each other, to begin with, they probably couldn't even if they wanted to. "Do you two have any idea as to why every machine here is behaving so differently?" Shirou said trying to move on from the topic otherwise they would be here all day considering how the two were.

His questioning made them stop for a second "We don't really know, to be honest, we have been told to leave these machines mostly alone, kinda seems they aren't a part of the larger machine consensus but that's all we know, well not as if anyone would tell us if there was something bigger happening here anyway." Devola says trying to make sense of the forest herself.

Shirou stopped as they got closer to a group of machines they hadn't seen them or at least they hadn't attacked yet so he stepped away and decided to see what exactly these machines did. It almost looked like military drills and considering how organized their attacks were when he did fight them it didn't surprise him.

"Do you think they are adapting to an environment or they chose this place due to how it looks? They seem almost like children playing pretend." Shirou said as he listened in to the various questions the machines sent out to the machine atop the stairs seemed like it was the commanding officer of the bunch. The questions seemed rather childish like they didn't even understand the meaning of the words they were spouting.

Popola thought about it for a second before shrugging "Does it matter?"

"Understanding your enemy is never a bad thing."

It was as always very hard to tell what the man was thinking and while they could tell there was more to it they decided to let it go. As they kept wondering about his words Shirou started moving on careful to not alert the group of machines in front of him.

"Eh? We're not fighting them?" Devola said quietly confusion running through her face.

Shirou shrugged his shoulders "No need besides they seem to have more… Sentience than any of the machines outside of this forest, for now, it's better to not alert them and just watch."

"You really think you'll learn anything important from them?"

"Doesn't hurt to try, these ones aren't particularly strong anyway they're just more organized but what I really want to find out is why they are so different."

Popola merely shrugged "Who knows, I think it's a waste of time trying to figure them out, their way of thinking if you even can call it that is so alien."

Shirou looked at her "You seem pretty dismissive of an enemy that you've been fighting for thousands of years."

"I… I guess." Popola shrugged helplessly "It's been going for so long that this stalemate is seen as pretty normal."

Shirou nodded "I can understand that I've been fighting against the legion for so long that not seeing their red eyes at every corner makes me worry." the man sighed looking down from a vantage point towards what could only be described as a battalion of machines listening to a captain "Still though seems this stalemate only helps the androids."

Devola gave out a hmmm like sound as she understood what he meant "It's not really something I thought worth thinking about but yes if the machines wanted to they could've wiped us out long ago, they simply stopped building more machines we still aren't quite sure as to why."

"Were they like this at the start."

He could see Popola shaking her head her face completely serious "No they were as basic as can be no thoughts no emotions, just machine."

"I see." Shirou nodded as if he figured out something.

Popola seeing that raised an eyebrow "You thinking something Shirou?"

"Maybe." Shirou simply continued walking making sure to not be noticed the two girls doing the same as they stepped deeper into the foliage "Kinda seems like the war itself isn't their objective or dominion over earth or even wiping every android out."

"How can you say that after the last few weeks."

"They weren't going for you guys, they were coming after me." Shirou sighed after noticing the dual looks the twins were giving out "I'll be fine don't worry."

Devola relented after that simply nodding, Popola on the other hand gave him a sad look "Why do you think they would."

"Maybe they know I'm human I don't know, not as if I can question any of them." Shirou looked at the ground in thought "Maybe I disrupted the status quo they had... but no it has to be more than that they want to kill me they seem almost desperate to do so, what I don't understand is the why."

"What do you mean."

"I'm nothing game-changing, I'm stronger than most especially in this day and age but not nearly enough to make an impact in this war, at least not for long." he grunted as he felt someone punch his left arm hard, only to look at the now very angry face of Popola.

"Don't talk about yourself like that you are worth the world to us."

"I'm saying it objectively Popola." He sighed as the glare didn't go down at all from his words.

"Well then objectively both of you should shut up, you're making a scene." Devola said, he was about to thank her but she also glared at him so he just let it go watching as the other twin huffed and walked side by side with her sister.

It wasn't as if he didn't understand where they were coming from, he was being insensitive to their feelings again but it was always easier to look at himself as just another piece of the board, as another soldier in a war and looking at things as realistic as possible even if it put himself down. Regardless he should've been more mindful of the two even if what he said was true.

His thoughts were abruptly ended as he heard a small rustling, movement maybe could have just been the wind but he didn't end up living past hellscapes by not being careful, he decided to stop for a second just to see making sure not to change from his current position as to not give away his suspicions… nothing... everything had gone quiet no animals, no machines, no wind. He turned around and quickly made his way to the twins.

He grabbed both of their arms as they yelped he gave them a look before they could go off on him, something about being a brute probably. He spoke quietly "Something is following us, whatever it is it's quick."

Their eyes widened but quickly as it came the surprise faded, their expression hardening as the situation turned serious had they been found out by Yorha perhaps, machines weren't exactly known for stealth "Do you two know of any quiet place around here, somewhere with the least amount of easy exits."

"There's a cave around here, we were actually going there anyway to let you see the flower we were talking about." Devola said after a few seconds of thinking.

"Alright so here's what we'll do."

(?)

Things hadn't been easy in her usual hunting grounds Yorha was starting to be much more active so she decided to go somewhere else to find something to kill, the forest seemed to be the best bet as Yorha were too busy putting up defensive lines in the city to care what happened in this desolate place also there were machines aplenty here a big plus. It had come as a surprise to see someone else having the same ideas as her though their little group could be a bit less nauseating to be around if they were to get even more rainbowy nice she'll have to vomit and an android vomiting meant some serious problems.

Despite that being able to shadow the man she saw kill an impossible number of machines had to be worth something, even if only to stick it to the bitch who was trying oh so hard to find him. Her mind pondered though the fact that he wasn't one of her brainwashed fools made her curiosity stir, he wasn't an enemy of the androids that much was clear but he was quite the puzzle.

Regardless this was an opportunity she didn't want to miss if he wasn't part of that indoctrinated group he might be a good ally to have even if she preferred to be the lone wolf she understood that she couldn't keep Yorha away for long, the other two cheerleaders though… well she didn't have as big of a problem with them as other androids did so the positives outweigh the negatives.

So she decided to get some info before approaching perhaps not the best decision considering she wasn't built for stealth but he was an unknown and she didn't remain alive being the enemy of the world by not being careful. Everything seemed to be going okay and she decided that before they could reach the castle she would approach them at least that was the plan until they entered a cave near the ravine, she did hear their conversation some time ago about some flower but tuned it out. Her best option was just to wait it out but she already decided to talk to him anyway so might as well make herself known now.

"So why are you spying on me." her eyes widened, his warm breath reaching the skin on the back of her neck. How..?

In front of her were the twins their eyes surprised at seeing her, she cursed internally as she jumped and made some distance from the group to the only place left the inside of the cave.

She heard a huff "Of course it's you." Devola spoke more annoyed than anything else.

"You know her?"

She nodded her body and composure looking relaxed as if the woman in front of them was nothing special "Yeh she's…"

"Oi useless I can speak for myself…" the anger was clear from her voice, it hadn't been loud but she seemed a fuse away from cleaving the other woman's head off with how much she was glaring whether or not that was an act remained to be seen, though the threat didn't go unnoticed…

Before she could continue a weight seemed to take a hold of her body, it wasn't something quantifiable it was just a presence her instincts screamed so that she immediately grabbed for her weapon her eyes glaring back at the perpetrator.

Gold and blue stared at each other not one of them backing down until he spoke…

"Don't talk to her like that again."

His point was clear but the one with blue eyes wasn't one to back down, the twins, on the other hand, remained quiet while staring at the two not really knowing how to defuse the situation.

The woman sighed her voice coming out as frustrated, she had nothing to gain from a fight they weren't Yorha they weren't machines so even with her pride screaming she let her weapon go the sound of it clattering into the ground reverberating throughout the cave, a peace signal. Devola chose this moment to place a hand in the man's shoulder "This is just how she is, she didn't mean much of it trust me."

The glare dropped immediately.

"Alright, can I talk now or what?" Despite just almost coming to blows the woman still seemed so sure of herself. He simply motioned for her to continue "I'm not here to be your enemy."

"Very well, what are you doing here then?" His eyes gazing a hole into her very being.

She took a deep breath deciding to just go full out "The name's A2 and I come with a warning."

She stared back defiantly…

Gold and Blue meeting once again.

Welp that took awhile, I don't know how much crossover there is between this story and my fake knight one so I'll just tell you what happened. Me arm broke big ooof, yeh it's going to take a few more weeks to fully heal. I actually had half of the chapter made before that happened but then I had to start fake knight chapter since it had been long since one was put out leaving this one to the back.

Anyway this is mostly a set up for future chapters, I don't really know if i represented A2 well but we'll see more of her next time so hopefully I'll do her justice.