After each step, his heart was beating faster. Every time his feet were hitting the ground, he was getting closer to the briefing room of Settlement Twenty. And it looked a lot like it was going to be his doom.

When he turned into the last corridor leading to his destination, his breath was short and a cold drop of sweat was slowly rolling down along the back of his neck. By that point, he had lost all hopes of this summoning being harmless.

As usual, the door slid open without much noise and Eighty-Three walked inside with his eyes quickly scanning the room to see where Maria was. And the instant he saw her, he froze in place. She was standing in front of the large briefing screen. Usually, it all the information regarding an upcoming operation was displayed. But this time, it was completely different. There was only one picture displayed, showing a figure that Eighty-Three knew very well.

He did not have the time to gasp as Maria turned her head towards him.

"Good morning, Code Zero Eight Three," she said in a calm yet cold voice. "Could you please come over here?"

Without saying anything, he slowly stepped towards the officer. At that point, he was asking himself whether directly telling everything was the best course of action or not. But he kept quiet, his heart beating faster still.

"You wished to see me, Officer?"

His entire body was tense, and he hoped that his voice did not reflect it.

"Yes. In your debriefing, you said that nothing happened between the moment Code Zero Five Zero and yourself found refuge in the ruins and the moment you were recovered. Am I correct?"

"Yes, Officer." He replied to cover everything even though he knew that everything had been discovered.

"Yet, when reviewing the footage coming from the cameras inside the cockpit, I found this." She turned back towards the large screen and pointed at the figure. Despite remaining completely silent, Eighty-Three's body language was enough for her to confirm her suspicions. "Do you really not have anything to say about this?"

There was no answer. Eighty-Three was too busy trying to figure out what to say that he was not able to open his mouth. And this silence was enough to spark something inside Maria.

"What really happened down there?" She was not screaming, but it was clear that she was lashing out a lot of stress she had accumulated since she had first seen the images. "Answer me! I know you are actively keeping important information to yourself!"

"Well you also kept things to yourself!"

This reply had been spontaneous. In fact, Eighty-Three himself doubted he said it for half a second.

"What?"

Maria had expected a reply ranging from pure denial to a complete confession. But what she heard was completely unexpected. So she just stood there, not knowing what to reply.

"You kept stuff away from all of us. You never told us anything about the world outside." He continued, letting his own feelings take over. "This man's name is Frederic, and he was far from alone. He brought us to a place where a doctor was able to help Fifty. If he had not been there, I don't think I could have been able to keep Fifty from bleeding out in her sleep. They saved her life."

Maria was shaken by what she heard, and Eighty-Three could clearly see that through her facial expression that was far from the usual.

"You… You actually interacted with them?"

"Not just interacted… They hosted both of us for the night and we talked together with a translation dictionary. And they told what happened before the klaxosaurs. They said how the klaxosaurs started to attack power plants, how people had to leave their homes and how they survived since then. Without Magma and without fear of the klaxosaurs. You never told us about any of that. So please, honestly, do you know about all of this?"

The silence that fell in the briefing room was heavy. And that weight was enough to break down the rank barrier between the two. There were no Officer and Pilot, just two people trying to find answers out of one another.

And Maria was the first one to break. Without saying anything at first, she headed towards the station that controlled the giant screen. Even if he couldn't see what she was exactly doing, it was clear that she was looking for something. Something that was buried very deep within the archives of the settlement. And still, she had not returned to be who he had always known. As if his questions had triggered an irreversible change.

Then, she stopped and closed her eyes.

"It's not just that I know what happened before the klaxosaurs attacked…" she said before taking in a deep breath and reopening her eyes. "I lived through it."

This time, it was Eighty-Three that was taken aback by a truly unexpected declaration. But before he could ask anything to help him understand, she pressed a button and something appeared on the large screen.

It was a written document covered in an alphabet he did not know. But strangely enough, most letters were either the same to the one he used himself or very similar. However, something he clearly recognized was the picture sitting on the top left.

It was her. This document was obviously very old, but apart from the haircut, she almost did not change.

"Voyenno-kosmicheskiye sily Rossii. Vosemnadtsatyy shturmovoy aviatsionnyy polk trokhsot tret'yey gvardeyskoy smeshannoy aviatsionnoy divizii. Starshiy leytenant Maria Viktorovna Emidova. Rodilas' dvadtsat' shestogo iyulya dve tysyachi vosemnadtsatogo goda."

Maria had spoken those words coldly. The words came from the deepest part of her being and obviously carried a lot of meaning to her. But Eighty-Three was not able to understand a single word of it.

"What does it mean? I don't understand."

She did not exactly reply. Instead, she continued with her same tone. But this time, it was far easier for the pilot to understand.

"Russian Aerospace Forces. Eighteenth Assault Aviation Regiment of the Three hundred and third Guards Mixed Aviation Division. Senior Lieutenant Maria Viktorovna Emidova. Born on the twenty-sixth of July two thousand and eighteen." She had read the document directly from the screen before turning her head towards him. She had a weight on her mind that she needed to take away. "I was a pilot too."

"What?"

"If you really want to know what truly happened, then I have a lot to tell you."

At the time, there were no Mobile Settlements, no HPE, no FRANV. Just humans living their daily lives and using Magma as their main source of energy. Back then, I was just a pilot. My squadron was specialized in air to ground strikes and was based near one of the largest Magma power plants in the country. After many missions, I had gained a lot of experience striking down on those that defied the interests of my country. But all that was needed was one day to turn it all upside down.

On the nineteenth of August of the year two thousand forty-eight, the first klaxosaur emerged only a few dozen miles away from the plant and immediately started to head towards it. After the confusion passed, we all scrambled to destroy whatever it was. Our regular bombs and rockets barely did anything as it continued to crawl to its objective. After a few attack runs, it slowed down. We thought that we were finally making some progress. But no. Instead, it started firing. And out of the dozens of jets that had taken off, only three made it back to base safely.

And I was not one of them.

A projectile hit my plane and I successfully ejected over the Russian countryside despite not feeling my right arm. I had to survive three days alone before I was found by a rescue team. But many did not have that chance. I lost a lot of very good friends that day. And because of all of my injuries, both physical and psychological, I was honorably discharged from the Aerospace Forces.

The only thing I was able to do at that point was to watch the world crumble as more and more of those creatures dug themselves out all over the globe. I was depressed and for years I just drank my pain away hoping this world would just end. I was in a truly disgusting state when the Human Protection Entity contacted me for the first time. They told me that governments had failed to protect mankind from the klaxosaurs and that they were the solution to that blue cancer. They were searching for people with experience and with a desire to take their revenge against the klaxosaurs. At first, I just told them to go away, but when they promised proper medical and psychological treatment, I just could not refuse. And that's how they got most people on board, by making promises to people that needed things they couldn't find in our slowly collapsing world.

Yet, despite all of their resources, I was simply not fit for flying anymore. So, with my experience, I was put in charge of one of the first fighter squadrons of the HPE. At first, our objective was simply to defend the largest facility of the Entity from the many assaults of the klaxosaurs. We did not have much to fight with as most of our resources went directly into our Magma based weaponry. In fact, if we were able to make something fly and strap a Magma bomb to it, then someone in the squadron was going to fly it into combat.

And somehow, for a few years, it worked. As more and more governments fell down, the Entity was able to smoothly establish itself all over the world. People were actively defecting to join us. And when those people were engineers and researchers, they were always bringing with them what they had been working on.

At one point, we got two teams of engineers coming from the United States of America, the country of the old world that had the most powerful military. The first group came from Lockheed Martin and had been developing a jet powered directly by Magma. They got the contract from the American Department of Defense just a few months before the klaxosaurs appeared and the reduction of resources dedicated to research and development over time killed the project. The others had started working, still for the American military, after they managed to kill their first monsters. The autopsies, if you can really call them autopsies, had revealed that each klaxosaur seemed to have two separate brains: one dedicated to receiving information from the outside and other klaxosaurs while the other was solely dedicated to acting and making the entire thing move. And the American high command attributed the tactical advantage of the klaxosaurs on that. DARPA was thus tasked with applying what they had discovered to better the performance out of fighter pilots and vehicle crews. But again, a project carrying high hopes turned into a stalemate when there were no more resources to do research with. And who had resources in the apocalyptic world? The Human Protection Entity.

It was decided to merge the two teams into one single project under the lead of Doctor Werner Frank, an aerospace engineer who had only recently joined the Entity. They were tasked with creating the ultimate weapon to eliminate the enemy with the code name Project Moses. Yes, that's how the first FRANVs were born. Project Moses was such a success that Doctor Frank was immediately promoted to Head of Scientific Research.

And me in all that? They needed test pilots for the prototypes and my team had the most experience fighting klaxosaurs. In most cases, we were the ones to create new tactics to add to the playbook. So, we were the ones tasked to evaluate how effective it was. And it was indeed powerful. Compared to our jets, there was not a simple drawback apart from simple nitpicks regarding the size. Our approval was the only thing needed for to kick start the lines of production to mass produce FRANVs. If only we knew at the time…

As she spoke, Eighty-Three had remained completely silent. And despite all the words he could not understand, he had still been handed way more information than he had ever hoped for. Yet, he wanted more. Just like a reader wanting to read the sequel of a novel he just finished, he needed to know how all the loose ends were tied.

"When was it?" he asked with an unusual eagerness. "I am pretty sure the ruins I saw back there are not just a few decades old. Please, you already said so much. You can't just let me to hang like that."

"Guess this is too late to back off now, huh?" she said to herself. "But I must warn you. This might be something you would not want to hear."

But that warning fell on deaf ears as Eighty-Three asked another question.

"How long has it been since the klaxosaurs first attacked?"

Maria sighed and took another large breath.

"As I said, the first klaxosaur appeared on the nineteenth of August two thousand forty-eight. Now, it is the fifth of June twenty-one fifty-nine."

Eighty-Three froze in place. Those were probably the most important sequence of numbers he had ever heard, and he did not really know how to react.

"A hundred and eleven years?" was the only thing he could say. He was not doubting Maria, but it seemed so improbable that he still needed confirmation.

"Indeed," she said with a calm voice, just like she had trouble believing it herself. "I am almost a hundred and forty-one years old. Way older than what was physically possible before the Magma. With it, scientists from the Entity were able to create a serum that prevent the people that get injections from aging."

"How… How is that possible? I thought that we couldn't fight against getting old."

Maria simply shook her head before giving a real answer.

"To be honest with you, I don't really know either. However what I know is that it has side effects on the brain. It reduces the effectiveness of the hypothalamus at creating some hormones. For most hormones, the impact itself is barely noticeable and not dangerous thanks to supplements in our food. But even if locally the damage is small, if you add everything together, it was still enough that when the first side effects kicked in, co-pilots just could not connect to their FRANVs anymore. Problem was, at that point, every air worthy pilot was suffering from those side effects. It grounded the entire FRANV fleet and allowed the klaxosaurs to push us back once again. We needed new and unmodified brains. Literally."

Eighty-Three had wanted explanations, but so far it was only more and more confused.

"But then what did you do? How is it something that I don't want to hear?"

"Well the problem is that the hormones that suffer the most from the serum are the sexual hormones." Eighty-Three did not understand what this really meant. Before he could interrupt, she continued. "We could not fulfill that need for people that had not been injected with the serum. All the adult human beings on this planet had, and still have, completely useless reproductive organs. None of us can have children anymore!"

Her words echoed on the blank walls of the empty briefing room. For the first time in probably a century, she was feeling the frustration of someone being a victim of something she could not do anything against.

"Have? What do you mean?"

But she completely ignored him as she continued her explanation.

"The solution came directly from the Chairman himself. We had the technology to prevent humans from dying, so why not create other human beings artificially and train them from birth to handle the weapons we can't? It's quite ironic, isn't it? You pilots call him Papa like he was your loving father, but in the end, you are just as much a piece of military equipment as the FRANVs. The Garden is just an assembly line like all the others."

Eighty-Three could feel his legs weakening under his own weight. So much so that he had to sit down on one of the seats used by pilots in regular briefings.

"I… I… I don't understand… We are just… Hardware?"

"Yeah. We always tell you that you are fighting to create a wonderful world for humanity, safe from any threat. And now that I think of it, you probably won't even be a part of it."

For both of them, the discussion had been an emotional rollercoaster. But Eighty-Three was clearly the one most affected. There was no way he could have predicted that as things he had accepted as irrefutable truths had been repeated for his entire life. But now, everything was crumbling all around him. His own life, Fifty's life, the life of all the pilots of Squadron Twenty… None of them mattered in the grand scheme of things.

But Maria was affected as well.

"Blyat," she said out loud as she looked back towards the screen and her old file that was still displayed. "All of this is wrong. How could I convince myself that raising kids and turn them into weapons was a good idea? Fucking Werner… At least, you are all treated like human beings. A large house, things to play with and social interactions with your teammates and myself. And I've seen the progress the Entity is making against the klaxosaurs. Maybe it's just the best strategy and all of this will soon be over and we will all stop fighting. And I could also propose to the board something about you…"

She turned to look at the pilot to get his opinion but she interrupted herself when she saw him, laying down inside his seat, his headphones deep inside his ears and tears running down his face. And the only thing she could do was sigh.

She perfectly understood how she was guilty in this, but at the same time it was not like she had any choice. Now, she had to find a way to make him roll with it. And the sight she had before her was clearly not very engaging.

But before she could make a move, her communicator started to vibrate in the pocket of her uniform. Without even checking what was written on the screen, she swiped her finger on the device before bringing it to her ear.

"Officer Emidova," she coldly said to whoever was calling her, trying to hide her troubled feelings.

"Yes, this is Doctor Valentine. I am calling you to let you know that Code Zero Five Zero has started to wake up from her surgery. She is stable. But there are important things that need to be told to her so I think you should come to the medical wing."

"I understand. I am coming as fast as I can."

She pressed the red button on the screen to end the communication. This was a new burden on her mind, but in a strange way she welcomed it as it was going to make her focus on something else.

Even if it meant leaving Eighty-Three alone for a few hours.

Dolls of voodoo all stuck with pins.
One for each of us and our sins.
So you lay us in a line,
Push your pins, they make us humble.
Only you can tell in time,
If we fall or merely stumble.

And the pilot really needed some alone time. He felt broken inside, realizing how worthless he and all the other pilots were. To prevent him from completely falling apart, he was listening to the rough man' voice coming from his headphones.

But tell me, can you heal what Father's done?
Or fix this hole in a mother's son?
Can you heal the broken worlds within?
Can you strip away so we may start again?

It was making him think about Frederic and all the others in their small settlement. At least, they had treated Fifty and him like actual human beings, but the hope it created was small compared to his despair. And that simple comparison was enough to make him feel sick.

Tell me, can you heal what Father's done?
Or cut this rope and let us run?
Just when all seems fine and I'm pain free,
You jab another pin, jab another pin in me.

And so, with feelings constantly shifting, he just stayed there as the door closed behind Maria.

"Twenty Alpha, you are cleared to land on platform Zero One."

"Understood tower."

The sun was shining bright over the desolated landscape. Years and years of excessive Magma extraction had left little chance to the local ecosystem. Now, the only birds flying in the sky were three large grey masses slowing down to reach their nest.

The large structure of Mobile Settlement Twenty had not moved since the squadron had left earlier thanks to the cover provided by other nearby settlements. Usually, a settlement was always in movement. But when you have millions of tons always moving around in uneven terrain, deep maintenance is regularly needed. And pilots always liked those periods of maintenance as it made the landing procedure way easier than usual.

The general shape of the Settlement could only be described as a large dome of grey metal with the number twenty written all around it with extremely large characters. The base was slightly different as it was made of a cylinder, its radius just slightly larger than that of basis of the dome so that the flat horizontal surfaces could be used as hangar roof doors for FRANVs and other aerial vehicles of the HPE to enter.

As they approached, One-Ten could see three hangars opening and focused on the one he had been assigned. It was not long until specific data appeared in his heads up display as the computing power of his co-pilot's mind shifted towards landing.

"Thanks, Three-Aught-Five," he simply whispered before flipping several switches that made the large machine slow down even more.

At the tip of each wing, the engines slowly rotated to point downwards. The FRANV was now stationary, suspended in the air by the tremendous force produced by the Magma-powered jet engines. All the upcoming movements had to be precise, with margins of error of only a few meters.

With a smooth movement of the handle and light presses on the throttle allowed One-Ten to align the mark on his display with the pattern of colorful lights placed just in front of him on the wall of the dome. And when the FRANV lost all its horizontal momentum, the pilot progressively pulled the gas handle back, slowly reducing the power of the engines and allowing the vehicle to descend into the wide-open mouth of the settlement.

"Landing gear down," he announced after flipping one last switch.

Underneath the hull, several panels opened and revealed the large wheeled legs of the beast. The vehicle continued its slow descent until the rubber finally made contact with the metallic floor of the hangar. At that point, the pilot did not have anything left to do as he completely cut off the gas and initiated the procedure to turn off the engines. The hydraulic suspensions of the gears took over and absorbed the last bit of energy to completely stop the plane.

There was a second of silence in the cockpit after the engine turned silent before the voice of the air traffic controller came back through his helmet mounted radio.

"Twenty Alpha, landing confirmed. Stay on standby for jetway."

"Understood, tower."

After shutting off all systems, One-Ten was finally able to take off his safety harness and his oxygen mask as the mentioned jet bridge was slowly extending towards the cockpit. With his relative freedom of movement, he turned around to check on Three-Aught-Five. And before he could really see anything, he heard a yawn coming from the back seat.

"How is it going?" he asked as he watched his co-pilot undo her own harness before stretching.

"Fine," she replied with her usual comforting voice. "It's not like a lot happened anyway."

One-Ten simply nodded as a reply before turning back around, just in time for the jetway to stick itself all around the canopy. And the next second, the air traffic controller spoke again.

"Initiating decontamination. Stand by."

Inside the tube, several jets of decontaminating liquid started to spray on the canopy, washing off any unwanted particles and killing potentially dangerous bacteria. This took about a minute before the spray stopped.

"Decontamination complete. Twenty Alpha you are cleared for exit."

"Copy."

With both hands, One-Ten reached for the two clamps maintaining the canopy sealed shut. Those were pretty hard to open, but after years of flying, the pilot had gotten used to it and it was not long until he could push the transparent panel up and lift himself onto the metallic platform. He was quickly joined by Three-Aught-Five who slightly stretched her muscles a little more. Then, silently, both of them went along the long enclosed path, taking off their helmets in the process.

There was not much they could talk about in reality. Training flights were far from being unusual, but this one stood out of the rest by its complete lack of really interesting objective. And if usually the two would start to debrief a few elements on their way to rejoin the rest of the team, here they could only hear the sound of their own steps echoing in the empty corridor. And even when all six got together, nobody said anything. In fact, it was only when the pilots were separated again by gender in their dressing rooms that someone finally spoke

"Man, that was boring," said Code Two Two Two, taking off his tight piloting suit.

"You don't say," replied Code Eight Two Seven, already picking up his clean uniform from his locker. "I think I might have fallen asleep for a small bit."

"Oh it's not that you might have. You did. And for quite a long time. You know I can't pilot from where I am."

Two-Seven quickly turned his head towards his co-pilot with a baffled expression.

"Wait seriously?"

"Yup. You are lucky I just couldn't slap you awake."

One-Ten only shook his head as he continued to put on his uniform. He perfectly knew that the two would start ironically yell at each other until one of them drops a bad joke that would get them laughing. By reflex, he turned to see Eighty-Three's reaction to the scene, but his eyes could only see an empty bench and a closed locker.

His sigh was enough to get the attention of the two other boys who also noticed the empty space.

"At least Eighty-Three and Fifty got to avoid that snooze fest," commented Twos, tying up the laces on his shoes.

"Well I still prefer this over crashing and going to the hospital," replied his crewmate that had already finished dressing himself up.

"Yeah true."

Ignoring their comments, One-Ten stood up and stepped in front of the locker. Out of curiosity, he opened the metal panel. He did not really expect anything, yet he still felt surprised seeing that Eighty-Three's equipment had already been decontaminated, cleaned and brought in the changing room.

But there was something on the helmet other than the pilot's number that was far from normal. The cleaning machines used for the helmets were designed for regular mission by mission cleaning. And by looking at the few red marks that created the outlines of two hands in the position one would put his hand to take off his helmet, it seemed that those machines were not effective at cleaning away things really stuck on the surface.

"What is this?" asked Two-Seven, looking over his leader's shoulder. Sure, there was not very much of the stuff, but it was still very noticeable.

One-Ten simply scratched off a small red bit to take a closer look, and it did not take him long to give his verdict.

"Dried blood."

That seemed so ridiculous that Twos and his crewmate remained silent for a few seconds. But they knew their squad lead and he was far from being the type for that kind of joke.

"Wait seriously?"

"Yes, seriously," coldly replied One-Ten as he looked for any other trace on the helmet. "It is most likely Fifty's. He probably treated her wound before taking off his helmet. And the washing machine has not cleaned everything off. I'll tell him to come down and clean it before Maria sees it."

There was something unsettling about this. They had only been told that Fifty had been injured, but they did not know any detail about her wounds. If she had bled enough that regular cleaning could not get rid of all of it, then it was putting things into perspective.

But in the end, seeing how easily it had come off because of the scratching of his nail, he simply brushed it aside as something that would only take his teammate a few minutes to clean up. Silently, he put back the helmet in the locker and returned to his own to finishing dressing up.

When the three finally walked out of the changing room, they rejoined the girls who had been waiting for them in the corridor. Then, like at the end of every combat or training sortie, they would calmly head for the elevator, talking about the mission and other, more mundane subjects. But even if they were all eager to head back to their home, they had to head for debriefing. And seeing how this flight had went, they all started to expect the meeting with their officer to be on the short side.

Three-Aught-Five was the first to enter the room, and she immediately noticed Eighty-Three's figure sitting at the back of the room. He had been waiting for them, his headphones in his ears, listening to that same short list of songs he has listened to for years. But as she closed in, there was something strange about him. He seemed distant and lost in his thoughts, only slightly nodding to salute his friends.

"Eighty-Three, are you alright?" she asked, her voice clearly showing her concern.

The others had clearly noticed too, but they always left that kind of talking to Three-Aught-Five who had most of the experience by now.

"Yeah… I'm fine," he replied. But his tone was not fooling anyone, far from it.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes I'm sure. I'm alright. Just a bit tired. That's all."

Everyone simply nodded, but no one was really convinced by the answer. Silently, they all sat down to their regular seats and started to wait. Usually, Maria would have been waiting for them, but here the roles had been switched. So, without really capable of doing anything else, Three-Aught-Five bended over to whisper directly in One-Ten's ears.

"Do you know why Eighty-Three's like that?"

The squad lead simply shrugged after taking another quick look towards his squad mate.

"No, I don't. I'm not in his head." His reply had been distanced, almost cold. But that was to be expected of One-Ten who treated every issue with as much distance as possible. "Perhaps it has something to do with his crash. Nobody here apart from him actually knows what it feels like. Or maybe he's worried about Fifty."

The co-pilot could just sigh. She needed more information, but it was clear that she was not going to get it from anyone else other than their officer or Eighty-Three himself. As she started to plan her next actions, the door opened.

Silently, Maria entered and walked up to the control panel of the large screen and started to type in her password. But no one noticed that the door remained open. As if someone else was going to enter.

"Alright," she started with her usual professional tone, "everyone is here. Before I start with the debriefing of this sortie, I have a few words to say about Code Zero Five Zero." This was enough to immediately get the full attention of everyone. "She has been through surgery successfully and has been cleared to rejoin you. However, there is something that you should be aware of. Zero Five Zero, you can come in…"

Those last words created a wave of happiness that swept through her audience, even a small smile appearing on the corner of Eighty-Three's lips. But this did not last long when the girl actually entered…

Sitting on a self-powered wheelchair with one of her legs missing.

This sight stunned everyone. It was clearly her, there was no doubt about that, but without one of the two lower body parts.

"Hey," she simply say to break the awkward silence. "That's pretty obvious, huh?"

"What happened?"

The question came from Nine, calm yet concerned.

"I…"

Fifty tried to reply, but she was not able to say a word before Maria cut her to speak in her place.

"The injuries that Code Zero Five Zero has sustained have made too much damage. Despite Code Zero Eight Three's best efforts, the wound was deeply infected by various elements from such a long time left exposed to the outside. Sadly, amputation was the only option left."

"What about piloting? We are not going to last long if the Settlement only has three FRANVs for defense."

Maria nodded at Two-Seven's remark and replied after launching another look to Eighty-Three who still had not said a word.

"Indeed. While Settlement Twenty is stationary due to maintenance, Code Zero Five Zero will undergo testing to see if she is still capable of handling her co-pilot tasks."

"And the wheelchair?"

A simple yet precise question coming from One-Ten.

"We are obviously thinking about giving Code Zero Five Zero a prosthetic leg. However, it will require more extensive examinations and equipment that we do not have access to as of now. Do any of you have other questions? Code Zero Eight Three?"

The pilot simply gave a silent side to side nod, indicating that he had nothing to ask to either his officer or his co-pilot.

Strangely enough, he was the one, out of the entire squadron, that should have spoken. Yet he had not said a single word, and it was adding up to Three-Aught-Five's suspicions. She needed to talk about this to Maria.

"No questions? Fine. Now unto more regular matters."

The officer made a hand sign to Fifty to say that she could rejoin the others before making information about their latest sortie appear on the screen. And, as if nothing unusual had happened, she started to debrief the pilots like she had always done.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened during the debriefing itself. From her words, it seemed that the mission being long and boring was intentional. It was a way to test the crewmembers' mental endurance. After all, the second letter in the acronym of their vehicles stands for Reconnaissance. And it's true that reconnaissance missions were far from being the most exciting, especially after thrilling combat missions.

Overall, the three crews had done well despite their boredom. Maria still pointed out that she had noticed Code Eight Two Seven's little nap and that it was something that should not happen again. Not much happened afterwards, and Maria was quick to let the pilots go when she was done.

For a second, Three-Aught-Five wondered if she should really see Maria at this moment. But seeing everyone walking away, she shook her head and followed them, leaving the officer alone in the briefing room. She only caught up when they reached the elevator that immediately started to rise up towards their home.

"But how are you going to reach your room?" asked Nine, looking curiously at the wheelchair. "Everything is upstairs and I don't see this going up those steps."

"Yeah," replied Fifty while passing her finger over the small control panel, "we talked about that with Maria. She said something about having a second, simpler wheelchair upstairs with something to carry me up and down. But she also said that it could take time so I don't really know. Apart from that, I guess I'll have to do everything sitting down now." With a smile, she looked around so that everyone could see that she was fine. And when she looked towards her pilot, theirs looks quickly locked before he turned his head away. "Eighty-Three? Are you alright?"

"Yeah… I… Good to see you're alright…"

The answer he gave was once again unconvincing to everyone, but especially to Fifty.

"Come on, don't feel guilty about this. You did everything you had to do and you brought me back here alive." Despite the two being relatively far from each other inside the cabin, Fifty reached out for his arm as a way to really get his entire attention. "Eighty-Three… Thank you."

With a long and deep sigh, Maria let herself fall down on her office chair. Even if it was barely four in the afternoon, the day had already been long and full of emotions. Between what she had felt herself and what she had seen, it had been a pretty rough and tiring ride. And now, she finally had a little time for herself.

She welcomed that moment of calm with open arms as she closed her eyes and completely laid down in her chair. But still, there was something in her mind, an urge that was far from leaving her alone. And it was clear that she would not be able to really rest until she did that something.

In a way, her office was at the image of the Entity. It was large and cold but also designed to be as efficient as possible. It was in this room that she did most of her work and welcomed officials of the Entity. But even if it was her office, she had never brought a personal touch. The only picture she had on one of the walls being a squad picture of the four current crews and herself, standing at attention in their parade uniforms. But there still a place that was truly hers.

In the far side of her office was a large cabinet that contained the paper backup copies of all the important files she had worked on in the last few years. And because she primarily worked with her computer, she rarely used what was inside the cabinet. But here, she was not interested in the files. Far from it.

At the very bottom was a drawer that she had not opened in probably several decades, and what happened earlier during the day had created in her the urge to finally do so. Slowly, she knelt down and reached for the handle before stopping. She was feeling some form of doubt. Was she really ready to rediscover what had been locked away from her eyes for so long?

After taking a deep breath, she pulled the drawer open all the way with a single motion. And the instant her look laid upon the objects contained inside, a wave of nostalgia blurred her vision. All of those were relics of her past, relics of a time gone by. But out of everything, the first thing she picked up was an object that she had immediately recognized.

An old photo album.

By turning the first few pages, she had opened the flood gates of her mind and it was not long until tears rolled down on her cheeks. All the photographs dated back to her days in the Russian Aerospace Forces, from the moment she entered the flight academy to the final squadron picture before that fateful day. There were also many pictures of her own plane and articles about her old squadron cut directly from local or national newspapers. And finally, there were pictures of him.

"Vladislav."

Without really thinking about it, she had said out loud the name of the pilot she trusted the most in the entire squadron. And it was not just trust, it was also friendship. Even more than a century later, she still remembered the many evenings passed chatting and joking around glasses of alcohol at the bar of the airbase. But the picture also brought back memories that were not as happy.

She had watched his plane dive to make the first attack run on the klaxosaur. She had seen him being engulfed in flames when he was shot down. She had heard his screams over the radio. And she had called for him over and over without any answer.

When she was shot down herself, one strange reflex she had was to look for him instead of taking care of her own injuries. But with her wounds, the recovery team managed to reach her before she could have done anything. But in the end, when the wreckage of Vladislav's plane was found and formally identified, nothing remained of him. The only thing she had kept from him was a small handkerchief that he had lent to her and that she was never able to give back. And she had kept that handkerchief preciously between the pages of her photo album ever since.

"I am fighting for you," she mumbled out loud in her native tongue. "But am I really fighting the right way?"

Slowly, she closed the album and put it back in the drawer. Still shaken by the emotion, she was about to push it closed when her eyes stopped on one last element. A red shield shaped cloth patch representing two golden lions with an inscription on top, sitting on top of a pile of other patches she had collected over time.

"Normandie-Niemen," she simply stated as a small smile reappeared on her face.

She remembered when, during an official ceremony, she had met foreign aviators who gave her this patch as a sign of friendship. In comparison, the patch that all the personnel of Mobile Settlement Twenty, including herself and the pilots, wore on all their uniforms seemed bland as it was only a simple black circle with a large white number twenty in a bland font and the inscription stating the Entity's full name and its motto all around.

HUMAN PROTECTION ENTITY
Pugnare, Protegere, Vincere

But before her mind could start to wander off again, a small beeping sound came from her computer. With a sigh, she put everything back in the drawer before standing up and walking back to her work station. The beeping was accompanied by a small yellow dial next to her keyboard that indicated that there was an entering communication. Rather annoyed by the interruption it represented, she pressed a small green button next to it and sat down in her chair.

"What is it?" she asked to the device with a voice that clearly showed she was not in the mood for more official business.

"One incoming video call," replied the robotic voice of her personal assistant. "Caller identification number is Hotel Papa Echo Bravo dash Zero One. Call is labeled as very important."

HPEB-01. The number one of the Human Protection Entity Board. The Chairman himself.

"Ah shit!" she launched to herself as she quickly readjusted her hair and rubbed her cheeks to make any trace of her emotional trip disappear. "What are you waiting for? Pick up."

The small screen in front of her turned on, showing the masked figure of the one who controlled the entire organization.

"Chairman."

In her chair, she was sitting as straight as she could be.

"Officer Emidova," replied the chairman with his distorted yet respectful voice. "How is the recovery of Code Zero Five Zero going?"

Despite the strange question, she was quick to answer.

"Everything is going along smoothly, Chairman. For now, she is restricted to a wheelchair, but she was released from the medical ward and has returned to the Crew Living Facility with the rest of the squadron. There have been no complications and we have already planned testing over the next few weeks. We hope that she will be cleared for action as soon as possible."

"Sadly, your schedule will have to change, Officer. Despite the crash of one of your FRANVs, this operation you lead was a success. It has granted us safe access to a non-negligible amount of Magma. We also received your initial reports concerning the potential evolution of our foes which will allow us to adapt our strategy. We have all the cards in our hands to start the final stages of our operations."

"What shall be the mission for Mobile Settlement Twenty, Chairman?"

"The last battle is coming, Officer Emidova. And everyone must prepare."

Hello and thanks for reading the third chapter of Discoveries.

I think that now, the story is starting to get into shape. I feel like what I have written before was mostly setting up the universe and all the corrections I have made to the Darling in the FranXX universe. It is a lot of work to modify a universe based on giant sexualized robots piloted by teens in doggy style position so that it makes sense

One thing I want to say is that even though I try to shift the context into a more military and realistic one, I am far from wanting to make a story that's only about war and fighting. What I liked the most in the original show were the interactions between characters while they were away from their mechas. Of course, that doesn't mean there won't be any action scenes, but I leave full out war for my GATE story.

Anyway, if you have made it so far down, I'd like to thank you once again for reading. I'll see you in the next chapter.