THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF EVENTS NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL AUDIENCES. IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU BE 16 BEFORE READING. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Book III: Stolen Valor
Chapter XXI
"Hey bro, there's a pretty blonde over there, you should get her number. Get your mind outta killing people for awhile," Zane urges Canaan through his headset as he approached Theoscaldia, in Tantal.
The blonde was indeed very beautiful, but he wasn't interested. He preferred to be married to his work.
"No thanks, I'll stick with what I have," Canaan replied.
"You mean depression and your edgy outlook?" Zane teased. "Well it's alright, I did a quick search, that girl's the powerful blade that escaped with an unnamed driver from the testing lab. There's a pretty good reward for her, wanna engage?"
"No," he said plainly.
"Wait, what?! Why?!"
"She's Adonis' problem, I'm not interested in doing him any favors. We're here to specifically kill King Zeke von Genbu, afterwards I will hunt down Queen Mòrag Ladair von Genbu in Uraya."
"Right, right. You sure you wouldn't want to get a girlfriend eventually though?"
Canaan stayed quiet before responding. "Positive, she'd only get in the way. Speaking of, how's Violet?"
Canaan was referring to Zane's girlfriend, he'd met her at a bar and they kicked it off quick. She had beautiful, purple eyes. Canaan was honestly just surprised that Zane actually landed such a pretty girl.
"She's doing fine. Although I'm not sure how long she's gonna believe I'm simply a computer tech developer for the BCC."
"Just make some semi-advanced AIs, nothing compromising of course. That should help make your story more believable."
"She wants to meet you, Canaan."
Canaan sighed. He wished he could keep people as far away from him as possible, but he didn't want to limit his brother's options in his quest for solitude. His brother belonged in society, that much was clear, but he was still hesitant.
"I-I'll think about it."
"Azami, you ready to go?" I called to her through her room's door.
"Of course my darling! Just a minute or two," she said happily.
I walked over to Sheba, who was already ready to go, and floating around in her bathtub.
"Do you have everything you need?" I asked her.
"Anything I don't have you can provide later," she said in a stuck-up manner.
"Nothing too expensive, Granny gave me a lot, but I'm not made of money," I cautioned. "And sorry I awoke you so abruptly, I promise we'll have a proper time to introduce on the way there."
"Well then I guess we're already exceeding your usefulness then, huh peon?" she scoffed rudely.
"Peon?" I thought to myself. Juliani and her blades had called me that. She seemed like a demanding blade, so I did my best to bite my tongue from that point on.
I approached Acacia's room and was about to knock on her door when I heard arguing.
"Will you stop that?!" Acacia yelled.
"You become a complete child when you start consuming alcohol. The most efficient action to restrain you is to render you unconscious," I heard KOS-MOS respond.
"Why are you so wor—" Acacia started before being cut off by me knocking on her door.
She groaned and opened the door. She was wearing an undershirt and sweat pants.
"What is it?" she asked, annoyed.
"Hey, do you mind if we have a quick chat?" I asked.
She sighed again as she held her head, obviously hungover. "Yeah, come in."
KOS-MOS began packing up while her and I sat on the foot of her bed, as there wasn't any chairs in the small room.
"Hey, you resonated with Malos, remember?" I started.
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Do you know how he was five hundred years ago?"
"Well New Tornan philosophy called him one sanctified by a great hero to do the Architect's will."
"No, Malos was a murderer that's responsible for sinking a continent and causing Mythra to sink another," I explained.
"How did he force Mythra into doing it?"
"She doesn't remember, but the history book says that he killed someone she loved, forcing her 'true power' out. Point is, he lived however he wanted to live. If he sees his new driver doing the exact same thing, I'm scared we'll see a second Aegis War," I cautioned.
She sighed. "He talked to me when I touched his core crystal. I was brought somewhere I didn't recognize and he asked me what I wanted most."
"What'd you answer?"
"Power."
It made sense, it seemed like we'd need a lot of that. "What'd he say?"
She seemed kind of uneasy. "He said I wouldn't have to worry about that anymore."
Even KOS-MOS shot a questioning look in our direction.
"Just... be responsible and stay safe, we don't need KOS-'is worrying about you," I cautioned.
She looked at KOS-MOS, who'd stopped for a moment at the mention of her name, before she sighed and returned to her task.
"I'll... keep it under consideration."
Soon, we were all up and getting ready to meet up with Zeke when Rafi interrupted me.
"Silas, can Rafi have word with you?" he said meekly. He seemed much sadder than normal.
I got down on one knee so I could see his face. "What's up Rafi?"
"It about Poppi. Last night Rafi was cleaning Poppi and making sure parts were functioning properly, but she randomly started eye-cleaning protocol."
I was no engineer, but I knew that the eye-cleaning protocol always made it look like she was crying, and understood that it shouldn't happen too often, as her cameras were extremely advanced and rarely got dirty.
"To make it weirder," he continued. "She started it after I had just cleaned Poppi's eyes. But it not only that! Poppi activating it constantly. Rafi try asking her what is wrong, but she just won't talk to Rafi! Rafi think that Poppi's AI is creating a form of depression, and Poppi just keeps trying to hide it."
"Keep a close eye on her and try to remind her that you're there for her constantly. It could just be a malfunction or it could be for real, so you'll have to make sure that something is actually wrong," I reasoned. After all, an artificial blade shouldn't be able to have too many complex emotions, right?
Once we'd finally met up with Zeke, he began discussing where we should go next
"With you two being the new Aegis Drivers, you have to learn how to be as one with your blade, luckily I know just the person to teach you."
"Oh no you don't!" an unfamiliar female voice said.
A short girl, maybe five foot three, with short green hair and large, circular glasses walked into the room. Her clothing was adorned with lightbulbs and I immediately assumed she must have been a blade.
"If you think it's a good idea for you to exert yourself like that you've got another thing coming, Prince!" she scolded Zeke.
"Relax Pandy," Zeke laughed. "I'm going to send them to Uraya and have Mòrag train them! She'd be much better at it than anyone!"
She rolled her eyes and then sighed before seeing Poppi.
"Poppi!" she squealed excitedly as she wrapped Poppi in a tight hug
"Pandoria! Poppi missed friend!" Poppi responded.
"I missed you too! Next time warn me before you blow yourself up and disappear for five hundred years!" Pandoria complained.
I noticed her core crystal had a small triangle cut out of it, which I assumed was the piece imbedded into Zeke's chest.
"While this is all good fun and all, we have to get going," Gabriel pointed out. "Odds are the farther we get away from this place, the less danger all of you will be in."
"No need to worry about that," Zeke laughed. "However I do believe you may get tired walking all the way there."
"What'd you have in mind?" a male voice spoke.
We turned to see Malos walk into the room.
"Well you certainly took your time," Acacia scolded.
"Well would you look at that," Malos said. "The drunk managed to beat me here. Shocker."
"Oh Malos you haven't changed a bit," Zeke sighed.
Acacia looked like she had a few... course words she wanted to say, but I shot her a look and she calmed herself.
Apparently Malos caught my look too because he immediately jumped on it.
"So you're the leader of this broken little powwow are you?" he further antagonized, but he soon eyed Mythra. "And the driver of what appears to be an Aegis as well? Howdy, partner."
Mythra wasn't even phased. "You done acting like an ass yet or can we move on?"
Malos laughed. "Don't mind me, by all means, let's see how far we can take this."
Zeke sighed. "I have a few ships out back. Over the past few centuries I had a team figure out how to build ships like the Monoceros, ones that didn't require titans to operate. I will lend you one of them to use for your transportation needs."
"Thank you Zeke, that's not even necessary," Acacia thanked.
"Just try not to wreck the bloody thing, just had her repainted."
I laughed. "We'll do our best."
We ended up walking outside of the city to Genbu Port, where we had docked when we got here. We passed some man we hadn't seen before, but paid little attention to him. Zeke flipped a few switches that led back to an area full of about twenty or so titanless ships. All too soon, we said our farewells and we were off to Uraya.
"You had a squadron of men, a weapon of mass destruction, and KOS-MOS... how did you fail?" General Adonis asked Lieutenant Uzuki and Pyra angrily.
"They are currently in the possession of an artificial blade, it nullified our ether grenade and she appears to have immense strength," Uzuki reported.
"I have a new weapon for you, Lieutenant," Adonis sighed.
"Sir, I don't know if I—" she started to protest, but Adonis cut her off.
"Save it. I always knew your siste—," he corrected himself. "The Colonel had a few screws loose, so I had a plan b ready. It will be your duty to bring her in along with anyone she's conspiring with. Now leave us," he ordered.
She nodded, saluted, and walked out, leaving Adonis with Pyra.
He began to stare her down, and they stood silently for about five minutes before she decided to speak up.
"General I'm so so—" she tried apologizing, but he simply didn't care.
"I don't understand you Pyra," he started. "I create you, give you life, a personality! I make you into something that can have its own thought, and THIS is how you repay me?"
She tried not to cry as she looked down in pure shame. She kept her legs tightly together and slouched down, holding her hands together down by her waist. She looked so scared, her face red, she was trembling.
"I could've just made you a lifeless doll like KOS-MOS. Maybe then you'd actually concentrate instead of FUCKING AROUND LIKE A TWAT!" he shouted at full volume right in her face, making Pyra jump and whimper at the same time.
Her face went a deep red as tears streamed down her face. "I-I'm sorry... I-I— I didn't mean—"
He slapped her across the face, throwing her into the ground.
She didn't try to fight back, after all, she had failed. She was a weapon, with one purpose, and she couldn't even accomplish it. She was a failure in every way, so maybe this was exactly what she deserved. For making him worry, for disappointing him.
He grabbed her by the neck and lifted her up onto her knees before roughly grabbing her hair and using it to throw her head into his fist as he punched her repeatedly.
Each time it's leave a huge welt, but by the time he'd hit again, the first one had healed. That was the beauty of a blade to him, they never showed when they were breaking. They didn't bleed, they only healed. They felt pain, and could always feel more.
He stopped abusing her as she lay there in a puddled mess of her own tears.
"Now, you can help me in a different way. You can't seem to figure out the purpose you were designed for, so let me show you a new one," he commanded as he pointed her head towards a certain part of his body.
He wanted her to pleasure him, and she did. She was a failure, so any success she could have in his eyes, she wanted.
By the end of it all, all of this humiliation, he told her he loved her and cared for her, and she was content.
He would have new orders for her later.
Readability Level: 11th-12th Grade
Time Taken: 6 Hours