A/N: Violence.
We stand, our line spread unbroken across the entrance to the city. The massive robots of the Brave Police stand behind our rows of flashing barricades and the heavy, bristling deploy of armored vehicles. Our human forces and human police interspersed with mech suits and combat drones. Our force is equal to a small army as we wait for the Nobunaga gang to appear.
All too soon the scream of approaching mech engines fills the air, the Nobunaga Gang racing towards us with dire purpose. We watch as the sixteen-mech strong gang tears across the boundary of the city, and straight into our jurisdiction. I nod at Deckerd, sending him forward. He holds up his badge with authority, revolver just to the side and aimed at the power core of the lead mech.
"This is the Brave Police, you are unlawfully entering Nanamagari City limits. Power down and step out of your units, you are under arrest." Deckerd pumps his voice through his speakers, the fiercely clipped words echoing in the night. Deep inside I smile, proud and comforted knowing my team stands with me.
"Ha, no one can stop the Nobunaga Gang!" The lead crimson suit scoffs at us as the massive robotic arm lifts in an insulting one-finger salute. The smaller black and gray suits ranged behind him cackle and jeer at us while arming their massive rifles, readying for the kill.
Power Joe grins from where he stands closest to Deckerd, "Just the answer I wanted to hear." He grins massively as the other bots all rumble their agreement and silently power up their own weapons. Even Deckerd smirks, all mechs nodding their eager desire to ensure the gang never touched another cop again. "Let's party."
From his position at the rear of the assault line Superintendent General Seijima's voice fills the com line, giving us the go ahead to proceed with all necessary force. The unspoken hope that our new, all human, units of the Brave Police would turn the tide of battle fills his voice and to a one we all feel the same silent prayer resonate in the depths of our souls.
Once our orders are received I bark commands to my team, somewhat surprised at the strength and pride filling my voice. I signal Deckered to take command of the bots. As one we commanders of the civil police, tactical forces, Brave Police and Deckerd bellow "Fire!"
Lasers of red and violent green scream across the divide between gang and police. Humans kneel behind thick barricades while our comrades in armor suits and Deckerd's unit charge forward to grapple with the mech suits in close range. I try not to panic as Deckerd races to the fore of the conflict, tackling the red gang leader's suit. Together they crash to the ground, their impact shaking the earth. I flail to keep my footing as smaller mech suits and human police alike fall to the ground.
Deckerd, his hand gun in place, fires six rounds into the Nobunaga gang leaders' suit taking out its power source, weapons array, motor functions and communications array, leaving the human inside trapped and alone.
Despite Deckerd's battle rocking the ground before us, I find myself hemmed in by the other mech suits of the Nobunaga gang. The suits get closer, we scatter. We humans seeming like ants compared to the giant feet stomping over us. I hear screams, cut terribly short as I race further from the mech battle front and turn, just in time to see the captain of my Brave Police human unit stepped on and turned into chunks of unrecognizable jelly.
The instant the gore is revealed I feel my mind snap into focus and all I can do is follow my training. I snap orders that I have no memory of barking, my HUD tracks the battle and I call corrections out as I lead the human unit into position. Our lasers target vulnerable points on the mech suits and slowly, we face the oncoming tide. Roaring fills my ears, my vision is too sharp yet ringed in blackness the skirmish continuing and all I know is the events of each moment, feeling an amnesia consume each moment as it passes.
Later, the dawn slowly brightens and I can finally see all of the Nobunaga gang out of their suits. Each man and woman cuffed and being loaded into a armored police transport. I sigh, too tired to remember that I had been terrified out of my wits only a few short hours ago. Despite my weariness my minds stalls at the realization that five humans could cause such massive destruction and find myself grateful Deckerd had been granted a heart.
Fresh officers patrol the perimeter of the battle site and secure the crime scene. Ambulances with flashing lights stand at the ready as medical crews patch up our wounded. Other officers, those with the strong stomachs cover our dead - or what is left of them. I gag and cough into my elbow then turn to find my bots now that my human teams are being looked after.
"Yuuta," Deckerd speaks lowly, his optics dim. "We lost too many last night."
I can only nod, my tired mind beginning to fog and my adrenaline racking through my blood too swiftly, making me shake. The after effects of the battle leave me sick, hungry, tired, wired and exhausted. I wanted to eat an entire buffet and sleep for a month, but my stomach tells me it could eat nothing.
"Yuuta?" I blink, look up and realize I'm laying down with medics working frantically on my arm. I look to where their hands are and see my sleeve cut away. Above the cut is my belt in a tourniquet I have no memory of placing staunching the bleeding of a massive gaping wound I have no memory of taking. I blink at the wound stupidly before looking up at Deckered hovering anxiously over me.
"What happened?" I ask with a rasp. My mind is too sharp, but blank and I can recall nothing. How odd, I muse, I can remember my first bullet in slow motion, yet I cannot recall this wound at all. The thought spirals down with the morphine and I can only wonder before darkness claims me why my arm is sprouting purple vines ...
"...they coated their bullets with a toxin. He has blood poisoning." Dr. Ishikazawa stated calmly once he had finished checking the young officer. "We have no means of saving his arm, but his blood is being processed as we speak. He will lose everything from the left elbow down, and, if he wishes it, with new technology imported from North Tokyo's Cybernetic Division we can keep him in the force."
"He wishes it." Deckerd spoke softly, his optics locking into the doctor's eyes. The Brave Police officer stood in the unit's office, a makeshift medical ward stood in the center near Yuuta's raised desk to put the humans on the bot's eye level. "Yuuta has always wanted to be an officer and our friend. If he is no longer capable of serving those duties he will feel that he has failed us."
The doctor nodded somberly, "Very well, but there will be side effects."
"Understood." Deckerd spoke lowly, knowing in his heart that this was only the beginning of a long journey to come.
I feel hot, burning. Everything is so hot. My lips are dry, cracked. I am parched. All around me I see a desert, moving dunes and whipping winds fill the arid landscape. The ground shifts beneath my feet like walking on bullet casings and I stumble. The sands sink and I fall - I wonder where I am. It's cold and dark and far too silent. There is no temperature, no wind, no sound. I call for Deckerd, but I am mute. I want to cry but my eyes are dry ... like a desert - I feel hot, burning. Everything is so hot ...
"His fever is breaking. He will be coming around in the next couple days." Words fill my head, but I cannot hear them. I can sense movement around me, like blips on a screen. Something is telling me where everyone is, how far away they are, who is there and if they are armed.
"Heartbeat rising. Blood pressure spiking." A too calm voice fills the silence, calling out vitals and I wonder why I'm floating in a hospital.
"Yuuta, we are here." Deckerd's words feel like a warm blanket sheltering my heart. I relax, and suddenly realize and can feel him; Deckerd and the other bots are all here with me. Knowing that I am not alone makes me smile, I think I smile as darkness once more envelops me and I fade into unconsciousness.
I think have been awake for a while, for some reason I'm not sure if I just woke up or if I have been staring at the ceiling for hours. I blink, knowing that I am dreaming as the office ceiling seeming too sharp and in focus to be real. I can hear the whisper of the air conditioning, pencils shushing across paper, pens scraping across forms. I can hear conversations, but my ears tell me it is silent save for the muted office noises and the incessant beeping of the machine pulsing with my heartbeat.
"This is the second time you have woken up in a hospital, Yuuta." I look up to the commissioner blankly. My mind reels as the strange dream I thought I was in suddenly becomes my reality. I am in a hospital bed in the middle of the Brave Police office. I look around, and see the massive desks my bots use filled with each member of my team. Around me on my level the support crew and human officers silently bustle around the transparent privacy screen isolating me within the mini hospital.
I sit up, all too aware of everyone pointedly not looking at me. "Sir?"
"We lost nearly one hundred officers in the Nobunaga fight. They had tainted their bullets. A toxin killed most of the others. You, Yuuta look at me, you lost an arm."
I flinch and look to both my hands. I have two hands - only one is black. I only realize I've thrown up when I desperately gasp for air and gag on my own vomit. A nurse is standing beside me, a hand on my back while I hack up the vileness I inhaled. I look to my hand - my black hand. It's made of something I don't recognize, like a blend between kevlar and metal. I can feel with it, the cold bar on the hospital bed I lean out of. My eyes slowly trace down from the clenching fingers denting the metal bar to my wrist. There is a strange ball connector holding my hand to my arm and the strangeness continues. Tendons that normally flickered underneath the skin as my fingers moved now stood exposed on the metal-hybrid arm until it reached my elbow. Another ball joint met my eyes and I fight the urge to gag, my chest spasming between the need to and repulsion of getting sick once more.
"I want a mirror." I blurt as I stare at the strange seam between flesh and metal fabric at my shoulder. The shoulder is black along with the rest of my arm and angry red lines surround it etching the border between flesh and fake.
"Here," The nurse hands me the mirror, her voice too calm and understanding. I look in, expecting something. Instead I only see my own face - then I notice my hair. I turn my head, tilting my chin towards my fake shoulder and see the same black metal-hybrid fabric embracing my skull. My real hand hesitates, then reaches up and tentatively touches my head. Its real, I gulp and trace the black intrusion from across the entire back of my skull down my neck to vanish between my shoulder blades somewhere in my back.
"I thought I lost an arm." I look up to the commissioner in confusion.
"You did," A serious voice spoke up. A woman in a white coat I have never seen before brushes into my little sanctuary of unease, "The arm was lost due to infection and necrosis. The toxin the Nobunagas used was a nasty thing. This arm," She gestured to the black thing I refused to look at, "is the main outward alteration we were forced to make. A processor, radio, internal communications net, data hub port and internal HUD implants were necessary to integrate you fully with Deckard's team."
I can only blink at her, the words she uses passing in and out of my head faster than I can register them. "In Japanese, please?" I ask slowly, wondering if she had slipped into English or some other equally foreign language.
She sighs and sits in a chair I didn't know was even there, "it means the back of your skull was cut open and your brain modified. You now can reach your team without needing an external radio. Since our minds do not work like a computer a processor was implanted to translate your orders into radio signals and control your new arm. You will need training on how to function with your new implants before you can return to duty, even after rehabilitation."
"What did you mean by a HUD?" I ask, thinking of my monocle display I wear during missions.
"I think this is best as a demonstration, and one that can wait." She stands with a small smile. "How does a shower sound?"
"Won't I short circuit?" I ask aghast, and feel immediately like a fool when she laughs.
"No," her smile widens, "You are still completely waterproof."
I nod, a shower does sound great. I try to stand and for a terrifying panicky moment nothing works. My normal arm flails, my feet slide uselessly across the floor and suddenly I am on my back looking up at Deckerd's worried optics. Without asking he holds his hand out to me, finger curved over and around me like a safety net while never touching me.
"May I be of assistance?" Deckerd asks in his painfully tight professional tone. I swallow tears I had promised long ago to never again shed and simply nod.
"Please." I feel weak, useless and broken. Everywhere I look I see privacy screens set up to keep human eyes from prying. Inside, though, I know the others are staring, pointing, whispering. they are saying how many resources I have used up since becoming a cop. How poorly I perform. They want me out of my position with Deckerd, and maybe they are right to.
"You have become a hero across Japan." Deckerd murmurs in a voice pitched just for me. "The news has played your actions from Kyushuu to Hokkaido and from Hawaii to Seol. All of Japan and the lands around us know you are very brave."
I cling to Dekerd's hand with all my feeble strength and cling with equal tenacity to his words. The loss of my arm is not real yet, as if it has happened to someone else in a bad dream I cannot awake from. And yet, I am afraid to awaken if this is a dream. I fear a darkness waiting to swallow me whole, and all I can do is nod at Deckerd's words and pretend I am still as brave as he believes me to be. For now, that is all I have. My Brave Police bots and their faith in me, that is all I have ever needed - it will be enough to get me through this as well. I believe in this , I have to.
... Poor Yuuta, his life will get better soon.