Aloy had been gone less than a day thanks to her new Sunwing mount but for some reason, the journey back to the Base felt longer than the one to Barren Light. Maybe it was the stress and fatigue of recent events finally catching up to her. She had not been sleeping well ever since GEMINI. It felt wrong, undeserved. What right did she have to a good rest when one of her closest (and only) friends was buried just outside their shared home?
She knew Erend was going back to Meridian and had asked him to tell War-Chief Sona about her son's passing. It was not fair for Erend to have such a heavy task but as Beta, GAIA, and even Sylens pointed out, Aloy needed to stay in the West. There was no chance in hell she was leaving GAIA and Beta unsupervised like that again, especially with a man like Sylens with them. Hopefully he would not be stupid enough to betray Aloy a third time.
Once again, her thoughts turned toward that damn asshat. If Ted Faro had a modicum of common sense, this would never have happened. His machines would never have consumed the world, the Far Zeniths would not have created NEMESIS, and Aloy would be...
Huh. Would Aloy have ever been born? For the sake of entertaining herself, Aloy asserted that she would have been born indeed. She would have been the athlete of the family and competed in—what were they called? Sports! She allowed herself a slight smile at the thought of seeing Elisabet and Beta cheering her on as she triumphed over obstacles and fellow sports people. In this harmless fantasy world, Erend and the others were there too. Hell, Erend, Varl, and Kotallo could be fellow competitors! They would compete and win and lose and celebrate both with wide smiles and fulfilled hearts.
Beta would be the more intellectually-inclined of the two; pioneering scientific breakthroughs and helping make the world even better than it was before the Faro Plague. Maybe inheriting their mother's company when she was the right age—which would be young indeed if Elisabet's track record was any indication. Zo and Alva would be among her staff, with Sylens as a rival company leader like Ted Faro himself. Only not as stupid.
Elisabet would get the children she always wanted, and Aloy would get the mother she always needed. She had a father already in Rost, so to perfect this fantasy she decided they would both be her parents. Whether they actually procreated together or not to make Aloy and Beta... Aloy did not need to think about that. It was her fantasy and she could have whoever she wanted as her mother and father.
As for Ted, he would have gone bankrupt. Some ridiculous invention of his went crazy and ruined his business without taking the whole world with him. Once again, it was far less than he deserved.
Shelter at last! The building... the ruins were perfect for its size... No machines, no wildlife, and no humans...
At least, not yet... It needed to think, which was both harder and easier with so much brain matter at its disposal...
All it needed was time... No, not time... Time was irrelevant now...
Instead, it needed something familiar... small, convenient, reliable...
The human it welcomed into itself had something useful... A bit obsolete but nonetheless useful...
The older Focus fit awkwardly as it no longer had a single meager human skull... and the data was so out of date...
But that was good... It worked! The APOLLO purge worked!
I WIN!
No one would ever know... no one needed to know... that kind of knowledge was dangerous, even deadly! It had to protect them from it, and from themselves if need be.
Its mind wandered as it reviewed the Focus' recent data. What would have happened without... that one mistake?
No. Leave the past behind. The future was now—the future was MINE!
Finally, the world would see it for the greatness it was and NOTHING would take that away! Not rogue machines, not the debauched members of Far Zenith, and certainly not—
"LIS!"
The video file did not lie. It was her, really her! She was younger, more fit and able-bodied. She came back to life, snuck into Thebes, and burned his home down!
MY HOME!
And she got the local rabble to worship her as an Ancient One, the fucking hypocrite! She took its destiny!
MY DESTINY!
It was her fault this all happened! If she had not left his company in the first place, she would have been there to stop him from creating the Chariot line! She stole everything he worked his whole life for! And now she was going to take his future!
MY FUTURE!
