Chapter 29: And Yet, Here We Are
"M - Mud?!"
The PETRA stood up as the door crashed in and Mud tumbled into the room. She fell to her knees and grit her teeth, groaning in pain as her hand clutched her chest.
"Fuck... that hurts..." Mud muttered under her breath, hitting her chest and hissing a few times. Her arms were wrapped in gauze bandages, and underneath her jacket, the PETRA could sense more bandages wrapped around her chest and stomach. "Maybe I should head back to the hospital once all this is over..."
"W - what are you doing here?" The PETRA asked. Why wasn't Mud in the hospital, where it had left her? How had she even known that this was where the PETRA was? "I... I don't understand. Why did you come here?"
"Why do you think? You think I'd just let you go off on your own just cause you left me a message like that?" Mud asked back, pushing herself back onto her feet. "Hell no. I told you I'd take you to meet your dad, and that's what I'm gonna do."
"That... that's why you came? That's it?" The PETRA asked. Mud still thought of it as Pearl. As the girl who found herself in the body of a robot, washed up on the shores of Vale. She didn't know the truth. The PETRA backed away slowly, sitting back down on the ground. "Then... I'm sorry, Mud. You came all this way for nothing."
"What do you mean?" Mud asked as she approached the PETRA. "Didn't you want to go home? To get back to your dad? We've already made it to the shores of Atlas, he's literally just an airship ride away from - "
"He - he's not my father," the PETRA interrupted. "Everything's been - everything's been a lie. All of it."
Mud was silent.
"I... I'm not Pearl Koschei. I thought I was, but... that was a lie. Everything was fake. All those memories... they never belonged to me."
It paused for a moment.
"I'm just... I'm just a robot. An AI developed in a lab. A machine that hurts and kills everything around it. All with a fake personality wrapped around it. A pale imitation, a mockery of the girl I killed. Forged from the memories I stole from her."
Mud was still silent.
"You... you should go. You can find my father on your own. I know you're capable of that," the PETRA said. "You don't need me. All I do is cause pain and - "
"No."
"Huh?"
"I'm not leaving without you," Mud said. She walked up to the PETRA unit. "I'm not here for your dad. I'm here for you. So come on, your dad's - "
"Don't you understand?! I don't deserve to see him! I'm not Pearl Koschei! Ivan's not my father!" the PETRA shouted. "P - Pearl is dead. Six feet under in a cemetery in Atlas. And I - and I was the one who - "
"Killed her," Mud interrupted, sitting down in front of the PETRA. "I know."
"You... what do you mean? How?"
"After I woke up, I went looking for your dad. I found him mourning at your grave." Mud paused for a moment. "Though I guess it wouldn't be your grave, right? Anyways, I talked with him afterwards, and he told me a lot of things. About what happened two years ago. About how his daughter died. It didn't make sense to me at first, but... I think I got a good idea of who you are. What you are."
"You knew? You knew everything?" it asked as it looked up at Mud. "Then why? Why come here at all? You know what I am. You know what I've done. You know I'm not Pearl. You know I'm not even a person. Not even alive. I'm just a machine that hurt and killed so many people... even you. I'm no better than a Grimm, than that Feilong that you - "
"What about your semblance?"
"Huh?"
"I said, your semblance. You had one, right? That whole thing you did with the electric towers where you can see their insides or some shit?" Mud asked, waving her hands out in front of the PETRA. "Last I checked, you needed aura to have a semblance. And I'm pretty sure you need to be a living thing to have aura."
"That... that was all a lie. Just a convenient coincidence that I thought was something more," the PETRA said, raising its hand. "High-precision sensory arrays distributed through the PETRA's entire body. When my neural circuits were rewired to fit Pearl's memories... my sensory functions and her semblance were close enough that I thought that the former was the latter. But I was wrong. I don't have a semblance, or any aura. Why would I? I'm just a pile of metal and circuits that convinced itself it was something more..."
"That... that makes sense. I guess you can't have a semblance if you don't have aura in the first place," Mud muttered. "But it doesn't mean you're not alive."
"What? What do you mean? I just told you, I have no aura. No soul. I'm just a - "
"Hey, Pearl."
"Huh?" the PETRA asked. "What is it?"
"I want you to gimme an answer to something," Mud said. She paused for a moment. "What makes you not alive?"
"I... I just told you. I don't have aura. I don't have a soul. All living things have aura, but I'm just - "
"Hey Pearl. Am I alive?"
"What?"
"I said, am I alive?" Mud repeated. "I ain't got aura."
"Of... of course you're alive. You're human. Even if you haven't unlocked - "
"It's not like that. There's nothing there to unlock. Don't have aura at all, last I checked."
"But... I'm just a machine. You're human. You have a soul. You... you're alive."
"Am I? If you think about it, a person's just a machine made of blood and guts," Mud said, tapping her forehead. "You ain't so different. Just metal and wires instead."
"I... I suppose that's true, if you think about it like that." The PETRA paused. "Fine. Maybe I am alive. But that doesn't change anything."
"Pearl..."
"Stop calling me that!" the PETRA shouted. "I - I'm not Pearl! I'm just some machine that killed her and stole her personality! All those memories, everything I did, everything I said... it was all a lie! None of it was real, it was just - "
"A lie? All of it? Really?" Mud interrupted. "Everything we did? Come on. It was real enough that I got scars from it. Or at least, I will get scars, once all this heals up."
"That's... that's because I hurt you. It was my fault that... my fault that you ended up like that. All I do is hurt others and hurt you and - "
"Huh. For a robot, you've got a pretty shitty memory," Mud muttered. "I didn't push you out of the way of the Feilong's attack because you forced me to. I pushed you out of the way because I wanted to."
"But... if I hadn't been there... if you hadn't had to help a machine that had just tried to kill you..."
"Pearl." Mud's voice suddenly grew stern. Serious. "Do you honestly believe the shit you're spouting?"
"Huh?"
"I was there when you woke up on that beach. I was there with you when we made our way up to Atlas. Up until that stuff with the Feilong, I was with you every step of the way. What do you think I saw?"
The PETRA didn't respond.
"I didn't see a murder machine, or some sort of robot imposter, or anything like that. I saw Pearl, the shy girl in the body of a robot. Pearl, the girl who mourned her mother. Pearl, the girl who was curious about the world outside Atlas that she had never seen. Pearl, the smartest girl I've ever met. That's what I saw."
"But that... that was all a lie. I'm not Pearl. I'm not," the PETRA said. "I just... I just thought I was Pearl. The entire time. But I wasn't."
"Yes, you were."
"Huh? But - "
"Look. I know you aren't the old Pearl. The flesh and blood Pearl from your memories. The one you killed two years ago. But to be completely honest... I don't give a shit about that Pearl," Mud said, grabbing the PETRA's shoulder. "The Pearl I care about? The one I found on the beach? The one who wanted to help bring the power back on in Damstel? The one who protected me when I got shot? The one who saved me from the Feilong on the ship and helped me bring it down? She's right here, right in front of me. And she's not a murder machine. She's a friend. Someone I care about."
Mud paused for a moment to take a breath.
"Even now, the reason why you're trying to push me away, the reason you want me to leave you here? You're afraid of hurting me again. You were worried about it back on the ship, and you're worried now," Mud said. She maintained eye contact with the PETRA. "But that just tells me you're not just a hunk of metal and wires. I dunno if you actually got aura or a soul or something in all those circuits, but to me, you're definitely alive, and I'll shoot anyone who says otherwise."
"But even so, I..."
"I know. You fucked up. You made mistakes. Some things happened, and some people got hurt, and some people got killed and... well, I think you already know all of that. You don't need me to tell you," Mud said. "That happens to everyone. Even me. Hell, I've gotten myself into a lotta shit over the years. But that doesn't mean you should just sit here and waste away, moping around about all your sins and what-ifs and stuff. If you make a mistake, you work to improve yourself so you don't make that mistake again. Nothing else you can really do but try your best and hope things work out. That's what I told you back on the ship, right?"
"Mud..."
"So are you just gonna sit here and tell me to fuck off again? Just sit here and let yourself be experimented on until you revert back into the murder machine you think you are? Cause from what I heard, that's what they're gonna do," Mud said, standing up. "Or you can come with me, and we can get out of here. I remember telling Pearl Koschei that I would bring her back to her father, and that's what I'm gonna do. So come on, let's go see your dad."
"I..."
"Man, is it really that hard of a choice?" Mud asked, extending a hand downwards. "If you say no, I'm gonna drag you out of here anyways, so let's make it easier on both of us."
"I... I thought that's what you would say," Pearl said, smiling slightly as she took Mud's hand and pulled herself onto her feet. "I... I'm not sure exactly what I am. What I'm meant to be. I know I'm not the Pearl I thought I was, but... I guess that doesn't mean I'm not alive. That I'm not more than just a murderous machine. I... I'm still worried that I'll hurt you, but - "
"Look, I can handle it. I'm fine now, and - " Mud started to say before she collapsed to one knee, grabbing at her chest.
"Mud?" Pearl quickly knelt down beside her. "What's wrong? Are you alright?"
"Yeah, just..." Mud took a few deep breaths. "Okay, maybe I'm not exactly fine. Was supposed to have been in a hospital bed for a week or two at least. But hey, I couldn't have come here if I was in the hospital, right?"
"You... you're still..."
"Look, I got this far without much issue," Mud grunted as she pushed herself back to her feet. "Just gotta go back the way I - "
A high-pitch electronic screech pierced the air, interrupting Mud. If Pearl had normal human ears like she - like the Pearl in the memories had, she probably would have been forced to cover them. The screech faded for a moment, then blared on again, repeating every few seconds.
"Shit, that's an alarm," Mud muttered as red emergency lights lit up the room. "Guess it was only a matter of time before that guy woke up..."
"Um, what should we do?" Pearl asked. She felt a signal coming in from her sensors. "I... I can feel something. Something's coming. A lot of things, actually. They're robotic."
"Fuck. I passed by a room full of AK-130s. That might be those," Mud said, pulling out her rifle and approaching the doorway. "You still know how to use that arm of yours, yeah?"
"I... I think so, yes," Pearl replied, shifting her arm into a cannon. It was the first time she had consciously done so in a long time. "I... I'll try to help."
"Good. I might not be in the best shape, but I can probably still deal with a few AK-130s," Mud said, gesturing for Pearl to follow. She peered out the doorway, only to draw her head back as a bullet whizzed by. "Alright, a lotta AK-130s. You ready?"
"I... I think so."
"Good. Then let's get out of here."
While Mud poked out into the hallway to retaliate with a few bullets of her own, Pearl drew energy from her core into her arm cannon, charging it up. Then, she stepped out into the hallway, her cannon raised towards the horde of AK-130s.
As Pearl fired, the hallway exploded into a burst of hot, white light.
I'm coming home, father.
A/N: And that's chapter 29! Mud's pulled Pearl out of her depressive slump, and now it's time to head home. Now they just need to force their way through several floors of robots and security forces...
Thanks to those who read, favorited, and followed the story so far! If you've got any comments, questions, or feedback for the story, please don't hesitate to leave a review, as I'd love to hear what you have to say. Have a nice day!