Disclaimer: Not canon to the actual story
Sorry if it came out late, but better late than never.
Today is a special occasion for the whole base, it's Halloween and what's not a better way to celebrate it? Trick-or-Treat and a Halloween Party. Therefore, the base decided to hold both events for this year, courtesy of Springfield.
Everyone wore different costumes from angels and devils to even witches. However, one T-Doll in particular wore a costume that seems to stand out.
SOP can be heard running as if she is in a hurry, "OH NO, I'M LATE! I took so long in preparing this costume that I forgot about the time."
The costume she wears looks like it was built for a cyborg. It has gray armor platings with gold tips covering most of her body. She wore a red coat with gold wall patterns near the edge of the coat. At the middle of her chest was an insignia of a skull that is on a cog. The left and right of the skull is black and white respectively, the cog behind it is of the opposite pattern. She still wore her antenna like headpiece, since it complimented her costume.
Another odd thing about her costume is a scarab-like construct hanging on her left shoulder. It has a loud speaker and a single purple-ish eye. The scarab construct is Banana but it is designed to look like a Necron Scarab.
It was the symbol of the Adeptus Mechanicus. She decided that this year's costume is of a Admech Skitarii ranger. She even carries a close-to-real-life version of a Galvanic rifle, except that it is fake and is not loaded with any ammunition. It was good that RO and Star stepped in to stop her from loading any possible rounds that can cause severe injuries.
She makes her way to the entrance of the party and sees Springfield in her Classic Witch costume. She approaches her before entering the ballroom.
"Good evening, Ms Springfield~." She greets the party host.
Springfield greets her back before becoming surprised at the costume, "Oh hello there~, Sop II. That costume looks quite... unique."
"I know right, I wanted to try something different so I got help from RO and Star in making this costume. It's nice talking to you, I have to hurry up to go somewhere else."
Springfield's eyes were raised at what she said. "Somewhere else? But the party is here though~."
Sweating at her suspicious eyes, "T-There's something I'll have to quickly get from the inventory, I'll catch up with my sisters but I gotta do s-something first."
Still eyeing her but decided to let it go, "Alright! Please be careful getting what you need and don't forget to come back~."
"Got it, I'll see you later, Miss Springfield~."
She leaves Springfield at her own thoughts as she walks by her to her intended destination, all alone in the barely lit corridor. Awaiting for anyone else who hasn't entered yet, that is if there isn't anyone she hasn't invited yet.
Springfield turned to face the room with the other dolls in there and gave her usual soft smile on her face. She has a feeling like this Halloween will somehow be special this year, whether it is a good thing or not.
Unbeknownst to her, a disembodied but metallic smooth voice can be heard close enough for her to hear. It spoke in a fine and well tuned melody but had malicious intent behind it. "Oh how fine this evening truly is, it would be a shame if things were to be changed."
The metallic voice catches Springfield's attention as she turns to the sound of where it came from and then the sound of a metal rod softly striking the ground can be heard nearby. In a second after the thud, she was frozen. She couldn't move nor could she speak as she saw a pair of green eyes staring her down.
All she could feel is dread and fear of what's to come before she lost consciousness from an unseen force.
Meanwhile at the storage room on the far side of the base
The lights of the large storage room suddenly turned on by themselves to reveal two imposing but ornamental figures. Both of their appearances look prideful, with striking gold/bronze and teal colored patterns on their metallic bodies.
The presenting Chronomancer reports to his Overlord, "My lord, the preparation for the trap has been completed. Your target is approaching this location."
"Excellent work, cryptek. But, how certain are you that my unfortunate 'target' is arriving so to speak?"
The Chronomancer unveils a cube on his left hand that forms to what a narrator's point-of-perspective of M4 SOPMOD II in her costume approaching rapidly to their location.
"I have altered time in that I ensured that it would be trailing this place for you to capture for your collection."
"I am thankful that you would be the one to accept my request instead of me asking that intolerable and insufferable cryptek."
"Are you referring to Orikan the Diviner, my lord?"
"Yes, him. His presence and actions can give me quite a headache at times."
"Very well, I swear that in my honor of the Nihilakh, I will not disappoint you."
"I hope that your words have meaning and that you carry them wholeheartedly, the Imperials have said similar things to themselves. Yet, look at what it cost them. History repeats itself."
The Chronomancer nodded, making sure to learn from the past and will apply them to his future actions.
"Have a care that you don't forget this lesson."
With that out of the way, the light in the large room shut off one more time which gave way to pure dead silence. Like a trap waiting to be pounced on.
"Heeeellllloooooo~? Is anyone there?"
From behind the door stood M4 SOPMOD II, waiting for the person who invited her to let her in. She knocked on the door a few times to check if anyone living was behind the doors.
All she got was pure silence and she did not like it in any way.
To her surprise and awe, the two panel door opened by itself with no one behind it. The lights behind her barely illuminated the large storage room. Inside, she could feel like it's a trap but she needs to know why she's here so she steeled herself and walked carefully into the room.
It was dark and almost scary for her but thanks to her better vision, she can see the room better. The room looked plain in the dark, as if it were just any large storage room to hold the items of other dolls. This whole extra invitation thing wasted her precious time.
"HEY! If no one here will show themselves, I'll just walk out of here."
Before she got the chance to even turn and walk out of the room, the door closed by itself without warning. The sudden closure of the doors leaves her in darkness for a few moments before all the lights turn on.
However, she is no longer alone as her eyes widen in shock at two metallic figures appearing before her. It was almost like they were waiting for her.
What shocks her is that one resembles a metallic humanoid but with tentacles that keeps it standing. The other, while not as weird as the former, has an aura that makes it off-putting when near him.
She almost had to cover eyes a bit from how much light was shining from their gold. She gathered her bearings before asking the all important question that is brewing in her neural mind.
SOP eyed the two figures as she got into a defensive stance, "Who are you two?"
Neither figures made any attempts at a dialogue with her as they kept on observing her. Sop internally swore that she could feel the figure with the off-putting aura sneer at her.
"Ah, where are my manners~. I'm Trazyn the Infinite and you must be M4 SOPMOD II, I presume?"
Alarms start going off loudly in her mind from her name being suddenly dropped.
"Wait! How do you-"
"Oh, I know some details. My cryptek aide here has graciously informed me of who you are. And those are the only details that I need to know." He gestures to his cryptek.
The 'cryptek' says nothing to grace his overlord nor did he say anything to his potential captive.
"Now that introductions are out of the way. Restrain her."
"WHA-" She couldn't move from her defensive stance as she could feel an invisible force freezing her in place. She couldn't even speak anything as long as is frozen in place but she can move her eyes.
She tries moving her eyes, which unfortunately is the only moveable part of her body that she can control. So she kept staring at Trazyn and the other figure that was holding her frozen in place.
"You came very close, this time."
He gestures his Empathic Obliterator forward which his Chronomancer obliged with his silent order.
The Chronomancer temporarily released Sop from his grasp, allowing her to regain all movement.
Instead of running away, Sop dropped her fake Galvanic Rifle. She then readies herself to pounce and then pounces at Trazyn. However, he struck the floor with the bottom part of his staff before Sop could reach him. The Chronomancer reacted hastily upon his wordless order.
This leaves Sop midair as she is in the middle of pouncing at Trazyn. Being frozen again in midair, she is unable to do anything but eye her captors.
Trazyn approaches her slowly but menacingly. Sop kept up her angry glare at him
He grabs a random bullet and crushes it, "When the Necrontyr shed their flesh and left death for lesser creatures, we thought only of freedom from fear, and making empires that would never die."
He begins to circle around her like a hawk flying around a snared mouse.
"We did not think of what else immortality would entail. We thought in terms of wars, of destruction, of conquest,..." He places his left thumb and index finger under Sop's chin as she glares at him angrily. "...but eternity also requires what you would call entertainment."
He smoothly moves his left hand away from Sop as he continues to boast on, "For my part, I find infinity allows me to observe the myriad ways in which matter and consciousness manifest." He turns to her with no small amount of pride on his conviction, regardless if his prisoner is thinking of ways to rip him apart.
"I collect them: objects, life forms, moments."
He sneers at Sop, "Your kind and your costume has gotten... my fullattention. And I intend to grab one for myself. My Chronomancer has created these instances which are different in countless, beautiful details."
He struck the floor once more as the Chronomancer released Sop from her 'prison' in which the momentum launched herself causing her to skid on the floor a few meters upon landing. She switched positions to make it easier to run.
She sets her sights on Trazyn as he openly taunts her. She growls in anger at him before running to him. No one has been able to anger her this much, especially with the implication that he will take her away from the rest of the AR Team permanently.
She reaches him and grabs his metallic ribcage with full intent of ripping him into scrap metal. "You. Will. Free. Me!"
The cryptek opens up with concern at the state of his overlord "My lord, should I intervene?"
Trazyn laughed in full mockery at Sop which angered her even more to the point that she started to crush the frontal part of his ribcage in futility. This was a sign that the cryptek chose not to intervene as to let the self-proclaimed keeper of history have his 'fun'.
"You can free yourself. All you need to do to never be trapped is to never enter. You are given that choice each time. I am not your jailer, my wonderful relic of metal pride." He looks down on Sop who has a face mixed with shock, anger and fear.
He does not relent in giving Sop a look that mocks her to no end even if Sop couldn't see it in his face, "You are your own prisoner."
"The look on your face is my favorite part and I will continue to enjoy it a few hundred times more." His eyes glowed a brighter green as it began to overcome Sop's vision.
"Nooooo!" Those were the last words that came out of Sop before her world turned still.
The Halloween party is in full swing. With most, if not all the dolls roaming around the base in their costumes enjoying trick-or-treating. Even the commander is dressed in his vampire costume.
Different costumes were seen throughout the large venue. From nasty mummy to the very suggestive costumes such as nurses and succubus.
As for the two other AR Team members, they were not having a better time than the rest of the dolls. Probably because of the costumes they wore.
Who knows if she fully embraced the 'explosive' jokes she keeps on hearing, but it is true that Star actually wore a dynamite costume. It had a timer that has two different colored wires connected to the rest of the dynamite. She also has a prop explosive device that accompanies her costume.
As for RO, she wore a succubus costume. It fits her as she has no problems with the size but it shows her big chest and it reveals her body curves a bit too much for her taste. Something that she doesn't like to wear at all.
"Why do I have to wear this?" Ro groans as she keeps on trying to hide her figure to keep from people staring at her curves for too long.
AR-15 sighs from her 2nd time of the same complaint, "Because we ran out of costumes and you got too busy the previous days to pick one. So, me and SOP picked one for you."
"Couldn't you have gotten a better one?" RO gave her a deadpan stare as if she wasn't satisfied with that answer.
"Look, we had to work on our costumes. SOP's took the longest because it was complex. I also had to work on mine but with a lot of willpower of not wanting to collapse in embarrassment."
RO did a once over of Star's costume to confirm her statement. Star looked like she had an expression of 'I'm so done with this.' and the dolls passing by her can be heard giggle at the unfortunate 'explosive expert'.
"Ugh whatever, let's just get this event over with before we go back to our dorms and then we can change back."
"Don't forget the candies as well, wouldn't you want to start sulking the rest of the evening in regret without them."
Star gave her sister a playful glare before chuckling in return, "At least, I'm not getting the majority of the stares from the base."
"Wha- HEY!" RO starts getting red and flustered from the comeback, before she tries harder to hide her figure.
"Speaking of SOP, where is she? She should've tackled us by now."
"Last I checked, she was still getting changed into her costume earlier before we went ahead. We need to check again, she wouldn't want to miss out on showing off her new 'costume'."
Their eyes immediately widened at the implication that SOP either is taking too long or is in danger. Alarms blared in their neural clouds.
"Let's go back to our dorms and bring her here now."
Both of them immediately start moving towards the entrance with haste. There is a lot at stake if something bad happened to Sop, at worst she would have runran away from the base.
They kept on moving towards the entrance until they saw a figure that was lying down on the floor, seemingly unconscious in the corridor outside of the room. Some of the dolls turned to the commotion that the two were causing in rapt awe or concern. A few even followed them out of curiosity.
They were alarmed at the sight of Springfield lying unconscious on the floor and not moving. This caused the small group to rush towards her.
A light blonde Russian doll wearing a formal suit from the Men in Black series moved in to check on the unconscious doll. Her name is Ots-14 or Groza, a formal posh doll with her own eccentricities like the others. She takes off her sunglasses as she grimace at the possibility, "Alert the commander, we may have an intruder in the base. Any one of you, get whichever engineer is on post today and have Springfield in repairs."
The dolls who heard the order made their way to the commander. Despite her eccentricities, they know when she's serious that things are serious as well.
It did not take long for the commander to become aware of this new unforeseen development as the base is back to being on high alert. Engineers on duty are trying ways to get Springfield back online with some varying successes as they are still trying to know what happened.
Two search parties with RO and Star were hastily assembled in search of SOPMOD II. However, they had no success as if she just simply vanished into thin air. The only evidence they found was a struggle in an empty storage room but it led them to a dead end as there are no more leads that can be salvaged from the scene.
Unbeknownst to everyone that is present, the sound of a screaming jet going at sonic speed flies into the dark atmosphere. It gets further and further away from the base until it cannot be seen by the naked eye. It couldn't even be heard anymore at such distance.
That night, there was loud wail, crying and some broken furniture in the AR Team's dorm. On the other side, someone's Jupiter Cannon can be heard being fired in anger while someone else drank their Jack Daniels and went on a solo search for the party who is responsible for the disappearance of Sop.
Deep inside the tomb world of Solemnace
The door slides open with Trazyn walking into the deeper layers of the tomb world with a cube in his hand. His Chronomancer aide followed him for a short while before needing to head off to accomplish other tasks.
"My lord?"
Trazyn turned to him, "What is it that you need, my esteemed cryptek?"
"I believe that my work here is done and I must go to attend to other matters that require my work." He keeps his wits together to avoid garnering the overlord's wrath by inconvenience.
Trazyn thoughtfully considers his assistant's words before chuckling, "Very well, you may leave to attend to your other matters. I will repay you for your assistance one way or another."
Not wanting to figure out what his last statement means, the Chronomancer respectfully nods at him before leaving him on his own devices. The door closes after he leaves the large chamber.
He keeps on walking deeper into the chamber until he reaches a monolith with Necron the Nihilakh symbol carved on all four of its sides.
Unknown location???
Sop was in a hurry as she was late so she kept running until she reached Springfield.
She panted to make sure that she doesn't lose her breathe.
Not wanting her concern be masked for the panting doll in front of her, "Oh dear, are you alright~?"
Catching her breathe to avoid collapsing in front of the hostess, "I-I'm fine. I just have to deal with one more thing."
"One more thing? But your sisters are waiting for you in the room." Springfield gestures to the lively ballroom as Sop can easily enter.
Reassurement is need to quell her from getting to worried, "I'll be quick, I just have to get one more thing then I'll join them."
Springfield eyes Sop as she is making sure that the latter isn't lying. It's weird that she still needed one more thing despite being somewhat late but that's unavoidable.
She lets down her suspicious stare as she didn't want to hold her any longer, "Alright~! Stay safe and don't take too long, wouldn't want to miss the fun part of the party!"
Sop starts moving to the direction of the farthest storage. She waves at Springfield as the latter waves back at her.
"I'll be back don't worry about me."
As she reaches a distance, she slows down to a marching pace and holds her Galvanic Rifle in a pose. Banana tails her so it doesn't stray away from her creator.
Keeping upright, she marches towards the furthest storage room to grab whatever she needs. She'll have to knock the door before going inside. She'd rather break it down but doesn't want to get scolded by the base engineers or the doll being the head maid of this base.
At first, she grew suspicious at the additional texts in the invitation letter but chose to ignore that part. It's better to see for herself.
She wouldn't think that the cycle would repeat itself for a very long time.
The POV shifts back to the self proclaimed collector as he studies the details of the new cycle inside the cube.
Inside the cube is M4 SOPMOD II wearing her Skitarii Ranger costume with Banana, a modified dinergate, in a scarab construct. She carries her Galvanic Rifle proudly as she is marching with a smile on her face as if she is excited to go somewhere. She is currently held in the cube in suspended animation.
He holds the cube one last time to stare at the details within it before he chuckles softly with malice.
"Perfection."
He places the cube on the monolith, mid air, as it activates which makes the cube spin around as it hovers.
He walks deeper into the large chamber full of other relics, moments and creatures that he has collected for centuries. They vary in sizes but they are important as they fulfill a specific time or moment when Trazyn 'collects' them.
And so the end came, no one ever knew where Sopmod had gone to, some say she wandered off, others say she was kidnapped, but one thing for sure, no one ever found her ever again.
Author's notes:
Well well well, it was nice knowing you SOPMOD II. Perhaps fate could have been nicer to you.
Just kidding, you'll still be alive somewhere else.
Anyways, this omake is inspired by one of the episodes of H but with my own twist to it.