Chapter XII:
A Matter of Perspective
Another interval of calming rains and more relaxed winds caressed the coastal ruins. The black skies indicated worse was still to come, yet for the time being, all was calm. All was dreary.
9S and Amos stood atop the roof after having finished a massive undertaking. An elaborate circle was carved into the concrete. Various symbols and cryptic, angelic scribblings were illustrated in a complex design. The same circle 9S saw in a mental flash of while under a briar of thorns. Through memory, or perhaps by some other supernatural means, he managed to somehow recreate it.
It was the cherubs who cheered him on. They smiled down from their place in Heaven. He kept them in mind as he carved out such a complicated incantation circle on nothing more than an abnormally vivid memory. He could feel their joy grow as he progressed in its design. Their happiness was his happiness. It put a prideful smile on his face when he finished. While they may have punished him in the past, he recognized his mistakes. 9S knew the cherubs would never lead him astray provided he followed their instructions to the letter, as such, he did exactly that.
9S occasionally glanced to Amos only to note the perturbed look on the Legioniare's face. He was clearly not as enthusiastic about this twisted little project as 9S.
In the center of the circle were the bloated remains of the YoRHa girl he found in that cursed shrubbery. With her body lying in place, there was nothing else left to be done.
Then they waited…
And waited…
The boy attempted to "activate" the circle through whatever means came to mind. From bloodletting to offering silent prayers to the cherubs. Everything short of clapping his hands together and place them on the circle was tried at least once. Despite his effort, nothing happened.
"I knew this wouldn't work," 9S yawned. He stretched his arms up toward the swirling skies. "Superstitious nonsense."
Amos growled at him.
"Oh, I have no idea," responded 9S, already knowing the question on the beast's mind.
Much like Devola tended to do, he assumed what Amos was saying and tried to forge a conversation from it. A conversation in which he was likely the only real participant.
"I guess I just dreamed this thing up. Couldn't tell you what compelled me to wanna make it, but it's clearly a waste of time."
Amos shook his head in dejection. He stepped back from the circle.
"Why don't we just go do something else? We haven't done any searching for your squad lately. Why not try finding them?"
Amos responded with an approving thumbs-up. It was all 9S needed to see. Any excuse to leave this miserable waste of time behind and forget about it was good enough for him.
"Let's go."
Part I: Popola
Dear Diary,
It's been a long time since I made an entry like this. As you might expect, much has happened over the past eon. I'm lucky I managed to recover you. Parts of you are still soaked, but most of the pages are dried out. I had to break your lock off. What happened to the key is beyond me.
We have new friends! Three special people who tolerate our presence. I cannot say if they enjoy it or not, but they do at least tolerate us. For starters, there's Amos. A human soldier turned Legion. Yes, a WCS victim still lives! Perhaps "friend" is not the best term for him, but we'll go with it. Then there is Pod 153. She is an adorable little thing. A YoRHa drone who assists our last friend, 9S. A troubled friend, but a friend nonetheless.
I haven't spoken to my sister in what feels like forever. We've argued before, of course, but we never have a problem moving past whatever bothers us. It's hard to imagine me going a single minute apart from her, let alone the days we've spent shunning each other. The nature of our troubles is hard for me to wrap my head around.
Devola and I have developed a bit of a crush on that YoRHa boy. A stupid argument, I know, but do try to understand. He is one of the only people to have ever shown us any decency. We do not deserve such wonderful treatment, but I also haven't been complaining about receiving it! This all started as a weird tingling in my chest. I was excited about it up until I mentioned all of this to my sister. As it turned out, she felt the same. Devola and I reached an impasse that day. We got into a bitter fight. Ironically, he wound up only being a small part of it.
Neither of us was willing to back down. The thought of even my dear sister stealing him away is unbearable. I cannot foresee how this will end. I only know that it cannot last forever. After I find a cure for the blight that turned his eyes red, I will confess to him. Whether he feels the same is a mystery. However, I fully intend to find out.
As aforementioned, that isn't the only stress in our lives these days. A typhoon rolled into the area some time ago. It's caused so much destruction and it refuses to relent. This storm has yet to show so much as a hint of dying down. Every day, I look up to the sky and see large funnel clouds threatening to turn into proper tornadoes. I dread the day when that becomes a reality.
There are just so many of them.
We were also kicked from another resistance camp. Not much of a surprise but I feel it's worth mentioning. We moved into this old building to seek shelter from the storm, but something just doesn't feel right. This is bound to sound crazy, dearest Diary, but I truly believe these halls are haunted. The things I have seen transpire here are no different than the ghost stories humans used to tell each other.
I'll leave you with an example. The other day, 153 and I were exploring one of the lower floors. For clarity's sake, we normally reside on the 13th floor. We've largely left the rest of this building alone for various reasons. In no small part due to how utterly creepy this place is.
Anyway, we were digging around in a random room when I distinctly heard whispering. I put my ear against one of the walls where I thought it was coming from and I could still hear it. I don't know what was being said or who was speaking, but there were multiple voices coming from somewhere.
I searched that entire floor. There was nobody down there. We searched the floors above and below as well, but we turned up nothing. 153 reported hearing the same thing. I would also like to add that Devola was about 10 floors above us. I asked her about it and she denied going down there. 9S and Amos went out earlier that day and did not return until hours after this event had occurred.
This is just one of several stories I intend to record, but I'll save those for another time. For now, I think it's high time I get back to work.
Popola wrapped up her entry. She briefly paused to admire a certain rose lying on her desk. It brought a smile to her otherwise somber visage. The girl took a moment to examine it before returning to her diary.
Just as she finished documenting her final thoughts, she heard a knock at the door. It, admittedly, spooked her just a bit. She jumped in her seat and stared at the door. Save for 153's light, the room was completely dark. The lack of lighting did not inspire much courage. With a sigh, she shrugged off the initial apprehension.
"Come in!"
There was no response. A few seconds passed and she heard yet another knock.
Popola cocked her head. She cleared her throat and repeated herself, raising her voice. "Devola? I said come in."
It must have been Devola. She was the only other person in the building at that time. 9S and Amos came by to inform her that they were headed off to complete some task, likely more memory hunting, yet that was over several hours ago. When they set out for the ruins, it was normally an all-day affair.
Once more, the door did not open. A third wave of knocking sounded off. It was much louder than the previous two bouts. At that point, Popola reached for her sword. She glinted toward 153 who silently hovered above her. The pod shined her light on the door. Popola stood up from her chair, gripping her Type-3 blade tightly. The thought of Devola simply toying with her was the most valid explanation, yet Popola held onto her sword regardless. Just in case her assumption proved incorrect.
Those repetitive knocks gradually turned into banging.
"Devola," the straight-haired sibling sternly called back. "Stop messing around. I'm in no mood to play games right now."
The instant Popola touched the doorknob, the banging ceased. She threw it open and dashed into the hall. 153 flashed her light down the left side of the hall, but it was empty. The duo turned to face the right and the result was the same. There was no one around. It took less than a second for Popola to open the door. How someone could have hidden away in such a short period of time was beyond her. It seemed especially impossible given that there were no hiding places anywhere near her door.
One would be required to travel quite a distance down either side of the hall to escape her line of sight.
On a hunch, Popola proceeded down the left corridor. 153 lit her way. Through the walls, they could hear the sound of a lute being played. Popola followed the sound.
Popola found her sibling all alone in the same desolate room she normally loitered in. Devola sat against the wall, hunched over, quietly playing her lute. Her jagged hair draped over her features. The innocent, somewhat sorrowful display was not going to fool Popola. She knew full well what her twin was up to.
A rose laid on the ground next to her.
Cruel Oath was propped up against the wall on Devola's right. Of course, 9S wound up abandoning it. He would obviously want to wield the same sword No.9 used. That fact came as no surprise to her. What did come as a rather unpleasant surprise was that he gave it to Devola. Why her? She wished to assume it was just a means of him getting rid of something he longer needed, yet a nagging part of her considered other, more infuriating possibilities.
Before her mind went on an eternal tangent over issues she hardly held any control over, Popola snapped herself back to reality.
"Sis," Popola spoke aloud.
The music came to an abrupt, uncomfortable halt. Slowly, Devola raised her head. She met her sister's disproving gaze with one of equal irritability.
"What?"
"I'm not in the mood for games today," Popola warned. "So, cut it out."
"Cut what out? You want me to stop playing? Is that it?"
"You know what I'm talking about."
"No, I really don't."
Popola fell silent. The genuine look of confusion on Devola's face was not something she could easily retort.
"You were knocking on my door and running off. It doesn't scare me. I know it's you."
"Me!? I've been sitting here this whole time! Go tell 9S or Amos about it! It was probably one of them."
Popola firmly shook her head. "It can't be them because they left for the city hours ago. There's nobody else here but us."
"Yeah, keep telling yourself that."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"This building ain't exactly secure, ya know," explained Devola. "You can access it freely from the bottom floor and roof. Neither area is locked down and that's to say nothing about all the windows you can climb into. Who knows how many machines and infected androids wander in and out of here? There could be some red-eyed nut job creeping up behind you right now and we'd never know until ya felt a knife sink into your backside."
Out of sheer paranoia over the subject matter, Popola glanced over her shoulder. There was nothing but darkness behind her. Darkness and the eerie sensation that she was being watched.
The conversation was a little more than what Popola had hoped for. She remembered how solemn her sister looked before she interrupted Devola's session. Clumsily, Popola decided to shift the subject.
"Is something wrong, sister?"
"You're asking if something is wrong with me!?"
"That wasn't what I…"
Popola cut herself off. She gave up and stormed out of the room. All the way back to her makeshift office, she thought of several possible ways she could have handled that situation without it deteriorating so quickly.
The straight-haired twin returned to her respective territory. This time she did not bother closing the door. She was interested in keeping a watchful eye on her surroundings.
She sat in a rotting chair and leaned her head back. Popola eyed the ceiling for some time. 153 briefly aimed her light up there but turned it away after assuming Popola had no need for it.
"Maybe it's me," Popola spoke aloud. "Maybe I'm the one who's going insane."
"Pod 153 to Unit Popola. Are you referring to the strange anomalies detected recently?"
Popola rested a palm over her forehead. Jade eyes darted to the left where 153 hovered near her. "If by anomalies, you mean the voices, weird knocks, and bumps I've heard, then yes. I just nearly got into a screaming match with my sister when I know she didn't do anything. That still doesn't change the fact that it happened. You heard it, right? You're not just playing along?"
"Affirmative," 153 replied. "This support unit has indeed perceived the same audible phenomena as Unit Popola. While there are logical explanations for certain events witnessed by this support unit, I cannot explain all of them."
"Like the knocking earlier?"
"Correct. Unless a trespasser is lurking somewhere on this floor…"
"That doesn't explain the empty halls."
153 hesitated. "Come again?"
Popola let out a soft groan and sat upright. "I opened that door no more than a second after hearing a knock, but nobody was there. Those halls stretch on for quite a ways and there are no other rooms to hide in nearby. They would have to be impossibly fast to…"
She trailed off. The synthetic blood which raced through her plastic veins turned to ice. Her heartfelt as though it were on the verge of exploding. Her stomach sank into her bowels. As her eyes focused on the darkness beyond her open doorway, Popola saw a face staring back at her.
The vague figure of a woman stood just outside her room. She could not make out any details about the stranger beyond the outline of a sharp, somewhat jagged hairstyle. One almost akin to what her sister employed. She could feel a pair of blank eyes piercing her very core. On reflex, Popola stood up and took hold of her sword.
"Pod! Light!"
153 did not need to hear the command twice. The little robot twirled around in the air and shined her spotlight in the hall.
They were greeted by nothing apart from empty space.
"Did you see that?"
153 shook her entire body. "Negative. What was it?"
"Somebody's out there," Popola whispered.
Popola crept out into the hall. 153 repeated the same sweep that she performed earlier. The right end of the hall was clear. However, when she positioned her light in the opposite direction, both she and Popola noticed a figure dash around a corner.
Whoever that woman was, it could not have been her sister. Popola could hear Devola playing her lute a few corridors down. She played loudly. More aggressively. It was as though her music was in sync with her mood. Popola felt a wave of crushing guilt, knowing full well she was solely responsible for dampening that mood.
She gave herself no time to ruminate on recent regrets. The girl would have plenty of time for that later. Popola rushed after the mysterious figure. She was led to a winding stairwell that would take her to any floor of her choosing. Popola's choice was made for her the moment she witnessed the trespasser head down into the depths of the building.
With 153 present to offer up a much valued light source, Popola descended the stairs.
What started as a frantic chase soon died down to a slow, haunting stroll. Popola could hear the woman's footsteps a few floors below. She calmed her pace, and for whatever reason, Popola felt compelled to do the same.
Pod 153's light occasionally flickered for the briefest of intervals yet it did not go unnoticed by Popola. She began to genuinely fear this darkness. The idea of being stranded without a light in the very building she had called home since the onset of the storm was an all too frightening one. If there was ever a circumstance, a setting in which she could justify going insane, this would be it.
They winded the stairs several times before a new disturbance left the two frozen in apprehension. The sound of muffled crying. It echoed off the walls. Popola could clearly hear the source coming from a single flight below her. She proceeded forward. She ensured her heels were the first to contact the stairs to keep her approach as silent as possible.
Suddenly, she heard a voice. One that did not belong to her floating companion.
"Stay quiet!"
That voice came in a fearful whisper. Popola could not determine an origin point for those ghostly words. A voice from within. She turned down another flight of steps. 153 illuminated the downward path. Two dark figures huddled together at the bottom of the stairs. A pair of shadows outlined by 153's light were very clearly visible despite there being no one in her light's path to cast those shadows.
Phantoms of the Old World. Popola expended no effort to approach them. 153 floated backward a bit but kept her light on them. The fact that Popola was not the only one seeing such an illogical sight was somewhat comforting.
Shambling footsteps approached the android and the pod from behind. Popola twirled around. Pod 153 shined her light back up the stairs. Another shadow was highlighted by 153's illumination. The dark apparition of a humanoid figure. Tall, lanky, and swaying from side to side like a reanimated corpse being forced to move against its own rigor mortis.
Echoes of sniveling and soft cries seeped into Popola's ears from back down the steps. She was apparently not the only one to hear it. The ghostly figure in front of her let out a loud, blood-curdling screech. An utterly inhuman sound. One that sounded uncomfortably similar to the various growls and hisses she would hear Amos make from time to time.
The apparition charged forward and ran straight at Popola. She felt a bone-chilling sensation as the shadow passed through her body. A wave of cold washed over her as though death itself embraced her. An icy touch from beyond the grave.
A panicked gasp escaped her lips. A cloud of chilled air became visible as her warm breath contacted the cold air around her. The sensation left the moment that dark entity started down the stairs.
Popola and 153 turned to track its movements. The shambling shadow lunged on the two phantasms huddled together on the floor. A pair of screams reverberated off the mold-covered walls. Popola winced at the sounds of flesh being torn and eaten. The disturbing noise of bones being crushed. Gurgled, exhaustive screams were soon drowned out by that wretched chewing.
Soon enough, those phantoms disappeared from her sight completely. They along with the awful, traumatic sounds they made faded away into nothing but empty space and the white noise of an abandoned world.
Fear was not the only emotion invoked in the ancient android. She gripped her chest at the familiar sensation of guilt that began to set in. She tried to ignore it. Her normal response was to lean on Devola's shoulder until the feeling passed. With her sister several floors above her, she had no other choice but to cope with it herself.
Popola mustered her courage and resumed her trek down the stairs. Pod 153 only dared move forward after the android took the first step.
"Hey, 153," Popola spoke softly. "How would you define a ghost?"
153 hesitated to speak. She answered the question, but only in a whisper lest said ghosts be drawn in by the sound of her words. "A ghost is defined as a spirit normally associated with haunting a specific location or object."
"Is that how you, personally, would describe the concept?"
She gave the notion some serious consideration. "This support unit does agree with that definition, yes. A lost soul forever denied a proper afterlife, and thus, forced to wander these ruins for all eternity."
Popola nodded along with 153's increasingly distressing words. They rounded the platform and prepared to head down the next flight of stairs. Behind her, Popola heard a door creak open. She turned and stared at the semi-gaped entrance to a floor she had yet explored for herself.
Cautiously, she pushed the door open.
Inside, Popola was greeted by another open doorway across the hall. She peered further into the rooms ahead. Another phantom lurked in the darkness. Outlined by a window directly behind the vaguely human shape, the shadow swayed from side to side. A couple of lightning flashes revealed more of the haunted scene. The figure swung from a rope. The apocalypse was clearly too much for that individual to deal with, so they opted for a different way out.
153's light finally reached the area that drew Popola's interest. The moment she shined it into the room, that ghostly form vanished completely. In its place was nothing but a spot of chilled air. An archaic rope still dangled from the ceiling, tied into a noose. It swayed gently as if it was used recently despite being covered in dust and a spider's silk. Popola entered the door and moved closer to the ominous scene.
"I hate to sound like 9S," she explained as the duo advanced on the forsaken noose. The two looked to the floor only to find the skeletal remains of a human. A stool laid tipped over a small distance away.
"But I wonder if what we're seeing are just memories. Memories so tragically powerful, they manifest in the material world and become attached to a certain place. To a certain time. Doomed to repeat themselves for however long it takes for those painful emotions to exhaust themselves."
"Perhaps we are both correct," Pod 153 suggested.
Popola turned to her airborne companion. "Or maybe, we're both dead wrong…"
They reached the bottom floor and exited the building. Popola stepped out and searched the horizon. Waves crashed into the ruins in massive swells. The wind picked up. It was a struggle for Popola to keep her footing. 153 was gradually pushed around, though, the pod was more than capable of preventing herself from being carried off.
In the distance, Popola spotted the suspect she was after. Stood atop a building well out into the ocean was a woman of her same height wearing a red dress. Even from so far away, Popola could see the stranger turn and look at her. She soon ran off, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, heading further out to sea.
Popola wanted to call out to her but she knew full well that she would never be heard over the elements. She also had no reason to believe the trespasser would stop on her account. Popola searched for a means of following the stranger. Her attention soon fell upon a path marked by several rooftops that were particularly close in proximity. It would be relatively easy to clear that stretch of space and at least get started on this wild chase.
She rushed down the coastline and prepared to leap onto the first building. She slid to a stop at the last possible minute. The concrete, slick with saltwater, nearly caused her to slip over the edge.
Popola peered down into the abyss below. Waves swirled about and crashed into themselves just as harshly as they did the land. It was a scene of pure, elemental chaos. Seafoam formed like clouds on the surface of the agitated water. The sight was intimidating, to say the least. She knew that if she were to fall in, especially if her head fell beneath the waves, there would be little to no hope of survival. Her model of android was not particularly weak by any stretch of the imagination, but she doubted her capability to fight against such a force of nature.
With that in mind, Popola made the first leap of faith. She landed on the other side without issue. 153 had her own challenge of simply not being blown away by racing squalls. She kept close to the ground and equally close to Popola.
Far ahead, practically on the horizon, the two caught another sight of the woman the pursued. She waved them down, beckoning for them to follow. Intrigued and having already followed her this far without the need of being outright asked, Popola pressed on. She checked to make sure the pod was still with her.
"You good, 153? You can turn back if you want…"
"Negative. This support unit will continue to assist so long as Unit Popola requires it."
"So be it, then."
The two resumed their treacherous journey across the sea. For the most part, it was easy enough for Popola to dash from one building to another. There was more than one path forward. Sometimes she managed to find the easier way, others, she would unwittingly take a far more difficult route only to realize her mistake later on.
The two came to one particularly decimated building. The stranger who guided them all this way appeared to have stopped running at long last. She stood there, quietly waiting for her pursuers to catch up.
There was only one rather large gap left between Popola and the desired destination. She inhaled deeply and jumped. The distance was a bit too wide. She did not quite make it. Popola slammed against a ledge and clung to the damp concrete. She desperately clawed her way up. 153 rushed to help her, but the pod was too late. Popola's attempts to scale the building were for not. She slipped and fell straight into the wrathful ocean.
She struggled to keep her head above water. It was an impossible task. One particularly massive wave came crashing down on her. The helpless android was shoved into an ancient abyss. She held on to the remaining air in her plastic lungs. Deeper she sank into a sickly green, aquatic void.
Waves pounded the surface, leaving her sealed off from the world above. Fear overwhelmed her. The prospect of dying was not what bothered her. It was the prospect of dying alone and leaving her sister behind. She watched as 153 repeatedly dove into the water only to be thrashed about by the waves.
It was a chaotic sight to behold, yet all below the surface was dead quiet. Water filled her ears. She swam up once more but a falling wave sent her spiraling back down.
Popola turned over through no fault of her own. She faced the depths below that were shaping up to be her watery grave. Her eyes went wide. The ruined city at the bed of the ocean suddenly came to life. Street lights flickered on. Vehicles sped through winding roads and came to halts at crowded intersections. Ghostly figures moved about on the sidewalks.
Lively streets filled with the lonely apparitions of souls eternally lost beneath the waves. They were left forgotten by time. Desolate faces looked out from dark windows. Their eyes locked onto the flooded world beyond.
Neon signs shimmered. A fleeting sign that they were just an illusion.
Bubbles of spent air escaped Popola's nostrils. She was on the verge of blacking out. The repeated shine of a spotlight from above drew her attention away from a world inhabited by drowning ghosts. 153 managed to pierce the ocean surface. She struggled to reach Popola. Metal pincers extended toward her. Popola made one last effort to save herself. With what little strength she had left, she pushed herself upward and grabbed hold of 153.
The pod quickly pulled her to the surface. Popola took one last look at the depths, but that time, she was met not with a bustling city of the dead but a quiet seabed. Ruined streets devoid of light and un-life alike. Fields of kelp grew like a forest around sunken buildings.
The two emerged from the water. Popola relinquished her grip on 153 and grabbed onto an empty window frame. She took a moment to hack up whatever seawater made its way into her lungs. Her eyes burned from exposure to the salt. The annoyance of the waves crashing against her forced the girl further upward.
This time, she made it to the top of the building. She sprawled out across the roof and allowed herself just a little more time to catch her breath.
Popola dropped down from a hole in the roof and landed in a peculiar chamber. Massive in size and virtually devoid of any furniture or decor. The wall opposite to the chamber's entrance was completely destroyed. The damage almost suggested that some sort of implosion had occurred. Metal beams and concrete were warped in extremely bizarre ways. Whatever transpired here, it was clearly no ordinary disaster.
The remnants of a narrow, wooden stage lined the destroyed walls. A chair was left overturned and tossed into a bleak corner. Popola soon noticed the ruins of a bridge connecting this building to another taller one up ahead. It was largely destroyed. Much of the debris likely having sunk into the haunted depths of the ocean.
"Pod 153 to Unit Popola."
The android glanced over her shoulder. 153, in turn, pointed to the center of the room. Popola twirled herself around and gave the area another once-over. Her gaze then fixated on a glimmer in the darkness.
It was a staff.
Stuck into a pile of debris, the weapon was covered in dust and cobwebs. Popola rushed over to retrieve it. She yanked it from the rubble and held it up to the pod's light. The majority of the arcane weapon was comprised of wood coated in a protective resin. One apparently strong enough to prevent the curse of time from having any perceivable effect on the weapon. Adorning the top of the staff was a large, golden metal mesh formed in a crescent shape. The bottom end of this circular ornament was much larger than that of the top.
What Popola felt at first was a vague sense of familiarity. However, as her fingers explored the weapon, it suddenly became to her.
"This staff," she exclaimed in shock. "I was issued one of these! Devola had one too! But what's something like this doing all the way out here in the middle of nowhere?"
She mulled over the details. The weird damage this chamber had suffered. She knew exactly what such a weapon was capable of. Whoever wielded it last must have unleashed it here.
Even the cobwebs she worked to clean off of the once shining staff had a decent collection of dust on them. After wiping it down thoroughly, Popola pointed at the massive pair of doors on the far side of the room. She simply could not contain herself. She had to know if it still worked. She could feel the magic suffused within, but she needed to see the results with her own eyes.
Popola focused on a basic attack at first. After some mental effort was exerted, Popola fired a barrage of crimson orbs into the darkness beyond. They collided into the walls ahead and dissipated into nothing. It was all well and good but someone of Amos' caliber could likely dodge those basic magical orbs in his sleep, and he was the only real reason she felt the need to wield magic in the first place. If countless machines using the same generic ability in their weaponry were not enough to put him down, she had no reason to believe that she would fair any better.
The staff was capable of so much more, especially if she were to sing and let her voice resonate with it. That fact she remembered well, though, she did not bother singing for the time being. Popola focused on the task at hand. Memories she thought erased suddenly bubbled up to her waking consciousness. Perhaps it was not memories at all, but merely preprogrammed training left behind by her creators even after her miserable failure.
Regardless, it paid off. A small orb of dark space formed at the very tip of her crescent staff. An orb so dark it absorbed the photons around it and crushed them into its core. A pocket-sized gravity well. A miniature black hole was the best way she could describe it to herself. An event horizon glowed around the orb. A blueish hue that marked a point of no return for all things unfortunate enough to be caught inside it. Arcs of static flared up around the sphere.
Suddenly, she released it. The tiny void flew off at a blinding speed. It chewed through a wall but dissipated during the process. That was fine. Popola did not need it to keep going. That was exactly what she was looking for. A proper means of protecting her sister as well as 9S from that salt-coated menace. His docile, intelligent nature gave her a little reassurance, but not enough to continue on unarmed.
She was fully aware of 9S's sword. That Treacherous Blade exuded a magical aura yet she had no idea what it was capable of nor was it her weapon to wield. This staff filled her with confidence as it would be the solution to her little problem.
"Now, if he tries anything funny, I'll actually be able to do something about it," she muttered to herself.
Popola was on the verge of practicing with it more but something stopped her. It was a feeling. A presence. An overwhelming presence. A chill ran down her spine. She span around.
The girl was greeted by an all too recognizable face. Popola screamed and staggered away. She tripped and fell onto her backside. In horror, she looked up to the woman that loomed over her.
Vacant, glazed eyes met her fearful pools of emerald. Red hair reached down to the woman's shoulders. A red dress draped over her form. Black sleeves detached from her dress concealed her slender arms. She was unnaturally pale as if all the blood in her body had long since abandoned her flesh.
Her face was identical to Devola's. A blank frown replaced the usual scowl Devola wore in response to eons of abuse and grief. Though she may look exactly like Devola, Popola knew it was not her sister.
Blood trickled down the woman's chin. It was not terribly long before Popola noticed a grievous wound in the woman's torso. A deep cut that would easily be fatal yet the woman still stood. One detail, in particular, stood out to Popola. It was the fact that the woman was not breathing. She made no visible or audible effort to take in air nor to expel it from her lungs.
The ghostly woman who so closely resembled her dearest sister parted her lips yet no words escaped them. More droplets of old blood took their place.
A voice still came to Popola, though, not from the walking corpse that stood above her. It came from within her deepest thoughts.
"It was your fault."
Raindrops fell straight through the woman. Her form was ethereal. Initially, unaffected by the physical elements of the world. Eventually, those raindrops drilled holes through her incorporeal body. Gradually, they erased her from Popola's sight. They drowned out her form and she disappeared completely.
Previously, Popola wondered what transpired in the room she found herself in. How that massive hole in the wall and ceiling formed. How one of those crescent staffs managed to find its way to this specific chamber. After seeing that red-haired apparition, it was not particularly difficult to put two and two together. The events that unfolded in this specific room, in this specific city were obvious. Painfully obvious.
Popola thought back on the wraiths forced to roam the darkest recesses of a world their living counterparts once called home. Were it not for her and her failure, perhaps this world would have wound up a little less haunted.
Briefly, she pondered the possibility of reverting it. 9S's efforts to resurrect No.9 only reinforced this short-lived hope. She contemplated a means of reviving all of them, but she came to accept that such a thing simply was not possible.
The world died a millennia ago. In no small part due to the betrayal of two twins who looked exactly like her and her sister.
"I'm sorry," she stammered to no one in particular.
Tears streamed down her face. She concealed her eyes behind shaken hands. A poor attempt to hide her sorrow from her floating companion.
"I-I'm so sorry…"
Part II: Devola
Devola idly strummed her lute. She played the usual somber tunes that haunted the halls with their despairing reverb. Each note draped another blanket of intangible sorrow across the stagnant air.
Day by day, she was content with sitting there in that lonely room, playing her increasingly depressing music to an audience of phantoms and shadows. Echoes of the brief, fleeting fun she had with 9S, her sister, and even that little pod were nothing more than memories of recent events that felt so distant.
She drowned out the constant sound of wind and rain with her music. She played without any intention of stopping. There was no one around to interrupt her and so long as her sister continued to leave her alone, it would likely stay that way for the foreseeable future.
However, it was not meant to be. She felt something lightly press on top of her shin. Devola lifted her head only to find a large toad sitting on her leg.
"Oh… Hey, little guy," she greeted.
Devola set the lute aside. "This is the thirteenth floor. How'd ya get all the way up here?"
The toad hopped off of her. It stared up at her with beady, amphibious eyes.
Devola smirked.
"You're a chunk, aren't ya? Guess this storm's been stirring up all kinds of tasty critters, huh?"
The obese amphibian croaked at her. The bellow filled a once disturbingly quiet space.
"Well, if you must know," Devola continued, pretending to understand the toad's cryptic language. "I'm making a song. It's for a very special someone. He really seemed to like it the first time I sang for him so I thought I'd do it again soon. I have a very important message to deliver through it, as well. Don't tell him, though. Can't spoil the surprise."
She sighed nervously. "I just hope I don't embarrass myself."
Devola fell silent. She thought over her own plan one more time. There was only one major flaw with it. "I guess I'll have to come up with a little number for my sister too when this is all over. I hope she doesn't hate me."
The toad croaked once more. Devola quickly shook her head. She ran her fingers through her wild hair, clawing at her scalp in desperation.
"Nah. You're right. There's no way she would… hate me… over this. Honestly, it's stuff like this that makes me jealous of you, wart boy. Ya know why? It's cause you dumb animals got it easy!"
Another croak. The slime-coated toad continued to mindlessly observe her all while Devola went on pretending that the animal could understand her.
"Ribbit all you want but it's true. All you've gotta worry about is finding a mate, hiding spot, and food. That last one you seem to be doing mighty fine with, by the by."
The toad leaped from the floor and landed on the ledge of a window just next to Devola's head. She flinched on basic reflex.
"Careful, buddy. Any further and you'll be on a one-way flight to Splatsville."
Momentarily, the creature remained stationary. It appeared that the toad would not be jumping to its death for the time being. His inactivity allowed Devola to resume her train of spoken thought. Her eyes narrowed sorrowfully even as she desperately clung to a weak smile.
"You don't have to worry about one of the only friends you've ever had going insane. Or salt monsters ripping out your spine when you least expect it. Or your sister hating you. Being at odds with her, the only person who makes my worthless life livable… It's agonizing. But every time I try to talk to her, it just turns into another fight. The whole thing is driving me crazy."
The toad took another leap forward. Devola noticed him preparing to jump in advance. In a flash, she reached out and grabbed hold of the amphibian before it fell to certain death. Dangling from the window, Devola glared down at her suicidal friend.
"Don't do it, Mr. Toad! My melodrama can't be that boring! And you've still got so much to live for. Think of all the flies that'll go uneaten if you go pushing up the daisies!"
Growing tired of the act, Devola pulled herself and her newfound pet back inside.
"Let's get you down to ground level before you hurt yourself."
With the overweight toad in one hand, she picked up Cruel Oath. She placed it in the loop on her belt where she would normally have kept her Type-3 sword. Devola then picked up her flashlight and set off for the dark, twisting corridors that so eagerly waited to be explored.
The girl and her companion were on the verge of making for the exit when Devola heard some odd noise down the hall opposite of her destination. Curious, she headed in that direction. Her flashlight offered a narrow cone of vision.
It was always so dark in that building. Her biggest gripe about their place of residence was not the mildew, piles of debris, or even its ominous nature. She and her sister had lived in far less comforting places. It was only the lack of light that bothered her. She could not think of much that could be done about it. The warm light of eternal day was concealed behind layer after layer of storm clouds. Such conditions reminded her of the Kingdom of Night.
Devola reached 9S's room, or at least, the room he normally held himself up in whenever he wished to view old memories or to merely be alone. She cracked the door and poked her head inside. She scanned the room with her light. The sound came from somewhere nearby but she had no reason to suspect that 9S had returned.
In one corner sat a recognizable corpse. She found it creepy how 9S went out of his way to pose that body as if it were sitting upright. The body of 4S. Why he insisted on keeping it in the same room he called his own was beyond her.
4S's lifeless eyes stared blankly into the abyss. Glassy, murky blue pools of despair. His frown as well as the mortified contortions of his face illustrated to Devola that he feared dying. It was the final expression of someone who died alone and betrayed. It filled her with an onslaught of gut-wrenching guilt.
"I…"
She stammered over her words. Her resonance was rich with sorrow.
"I figured out what he was planning. He didn't even try to deny it. I got mad at him and ran off. I just locked myself in an empty room and played my lute. The next thing I knew, him and Amos were carrying you down the hall. I-I should've talked him out of it. I should've stopped him. Had I have been thinking clearly, maybe you'd still be alive."
The corpse, of course, gave her no reply. 4S stiffly sat there against the wall like a doll. He lifelessly gazed at the cracked floor. Lost in a single moment of despair. His unmoving form served as a reminder to her of how heartless a certain someone could be if left unchecked.
"I'm sorry…"
The android stepped away from the door and closed it. She made her way back down the hall, but something else stopped her. She froze as a glimmering droplet of water slowly descended from the ceiling. Another droplet chased after the first. Her attention was naturally drawn upward to a nearby air vent.
Quiet shuffling echoed from the metallic grate. The sound of someone or something moving around up there. She shined her flashlight into the grate but was greeted by nothing more than empty space. The disturbances in the ceiling came to an immediate halt.
She furrowed a brow. An ominous encounter but Devola ultimately gave up on trying to solve that mystery. She assumed she was better off not knowing what was causing those noises and carried on.
Devola somehow became lost on her way to the stairs. She passed 9S's room about three times before finally getting her bearings. Annoying, but it did not come as a surprise. That building was always hard to navigate no matter how much time she spent living inside it. The darkness and uniform halls never failed to confuse her. She checked Popola's office on the way out, but it was empty.
For once she was truly alone, not that such a feeling was exactly alien to her in light of recent events.
Each downward step she took left a lasting echo floating about in the pitch-black air. A bleak atmosphere loomed over Devola. The desolate structure had a way of reinforcing her loneliness. She decided along the way that she would take a walk and find a proper spot to release the toad. She would rather wander around outside enduring freakish weather than remain all alone in this haunted place for any length of time.
Devola lowered her flashlight about halfway down the first flight of steps. Something on the ground was glittering in response to her light source. She noticed small spots of water on the stairs. She took a closer look at them. They resembled the outline of footprints. As if someone stepped into a puddle before making their way down to the lower levels.
The sight was unsettling, to say the least. Curiosity as well as a need to secure her dwelling place compelled her to follow the footprints. She was already headed down into the depths regardless. Seeing where they led to ease her growing paranoia was no troubling a task.
After reaching the platform leading to the twelfth floor, Devola noticed the trail of footprints headed for a nearby door. Hesitantly, she followed the tracks. She made sure to check her corners upon entry.
Nothing moved.
Nothing made a sound.
The footprints led her down the right end of the corridor. She reached the last door where the trail came to an end. Devola lowered her flashlight and reached for the doorknob.
"Locked."
The thought of finding a key crossed her mind, but as she glanced around her general area, a voice sounded off from behind the door. A chilling female whisper, shaky and filled with malice.
"…Who took my baby?"
Far away cries of human infants filled Devola's ears. Instinctively, she twirled around and studied the desolate hallway. She heard something gently hit the floor in front of her. Devola aimed her flashlight downward only to find another damp footprint implanted upon the grime-soaked floor.
A footprint that was not there previously. Suddenly, she heard another footstep. A new track took form further down the hall. This process repeated as though an apparition intangible to the naked eye was walking rather swiftly away from her.
Devola took a deep breath. She made no effort to rationalize what she was seeing. An explanation for such a thing would likely leave her more concerned. She sat her only friend down onto the floor and unsheathed her glimmering sword. "Wait here. I'll be back in a sec."
She set off to follow the trail. The toad quietly watched her disappear into a foreboding void.
To say Devola was apprehensive was an immense understatement. She forced herself to investigate. The building was still their home, their shelter from the elements. The only people who mattered to her lived with her in this cursed abode. As such, she was compelled to secure it for their sake.
The footprints lured Devola to an unremarkable room on the far side of the floor. All along the way, she heard the fleeting noises of a child. The way they echoed almost made it sound as though said sounds were coming from inside the ceiling. Her hands trembled in fear.
"Courage, Devola," she told herself. "Courage! Your sister has it so why don't you?"
She spoke softly so as to not be heard. This was in spite of the fact that she was traveling through what should have been an empty floor. Whether that was true or not remained to be seen, and she most certainly had her doubts.
Devola was no stranger to the haunted nature of this building. From the moment they arrived, and perhaps even well before that, she acquired an unexplainable sense of unease. Either something sinister was following 9S around, or that "something sinister" lived in these bleak halls.
She often kept to that one room upstairs, playing her lute. A means of not only escaping from this cursed reality but so that she could drown out the cries of the damned.
As she entered the room, Devola spied a shining object lying in the middle of the floor. She checked her corners before rushing over to investigate. The item was a key. Covered in rust, it still possessed a tiny glimmer that called out to Devola. The prospect of this being the key she needed was the first thing to cross her mind. She had nothing better to do that day, so why not experiment? She picked it up and was on the verge of leaving the room behind her.
A lightning strike drew her attention to a separate chamber on her left. A space that resided deeper into what was once a residence for a living, breathing human. Two small, shadowy figures ran from one side of that room to the next, disappearing around a corner. They let out high-pitched laughs as they merrily chased each other down. The childish laughter faded the instant they left her sight.
Devola shuddered.
"Ya shouldn't stay in a place like this," she sheepishly warned. "Surely there's a better place you can go, right?"
The encounter reminded her of a question she recalled asking Popola nearly ten thousand years ago.
"Sis? Do we have souls?"
"I never did get a proper answer," Devola announced to an audience of dead people. "But I still wonder. If I were to die here. As lonely and miserable as I am. Would I too haunt these halls?"
Devola returned to the locked door at the other end of the hall. She was pleased to find her amphibious companion still waiting for her exactly where she left him.
"Still waiting, huh? Well, this shouldn't take long," she told the toad. "Just let me check this room and we'll be back on our way."
She was not expecting nor hoping for the key to work. In fact, Devola found it to be quite an unpleasant surprise when she felt the key turn properly. An audible click signaled that she was ready to enter. With extreme caution, Devola pushed the door open. It opened slowly and let out a miserable creak that annoyed the curly-haired android almost as much as it unnerved her.
The room was empty. At least, that is how it appeared upon Devola's entry. She practically breached the room, checking each corner or potential hiding spot. She treated the area as though it were a hostile zone. The girl had to lower her flashlight just to better brace her sword-wielding arm. She relied on the shapes of objects in the dark all while keeping an eye out for movement.
The sound of a baby's incessant, gargled crying welcomed her. She could only recognize it from the preprogrammed knowledge her creators gave her. A distinct, pained cry. She followed the voice, raising her flashlight just to further help figure out where it was coming from.
Devola soon found the source of the sobbing, and when she did, she immediately wished she never unlocked this room in the first place.
Hunched over on the floor in a far corner of the chamber was a woman the likes of which Devola had never encountered before. She wore a peculiar beige outfit crafted from some odd sort of leather. The woman had a head of black hair. Her ears were sharp and pointy. They were shaped like that of the fictitious elves humans used to so often depict in fantastical tales.
Noticing the light that exposed her, the elf-like woman slowly turned. She twisted her neck, peering over her shoulder. Devola looked on at her features in horror. The woman had subtle differences in her facial structure that set her apart from the usual look she would expect of a fellow android, or even that of the humans they were modeled after. However, it was not the otherworldly appearance that caused Devola's metallic bones to rattle.
The wild look in her eyes was merely a sideshow to the fresh blood that coated the lower half of her face. Intestines dangled from her maw. Even as she locked eyes with Devola, the elf still chewed at the entrails caught between her teeth.
The elf opened her blood-soaked mouth. Guts fell from her lips as she spoke softly to her spectator. "They're… so sweet…"
It was one of the rare times Devola became overwhelmed by nausea. Just as she contemplated doubling over and throwing up, her flashlight started to flicker. It was the worst possible time such a thing could happen.
Devola panicked, but she had no time to react. No room to breathe. Her light went out. Darkness consumed her for only a second or two but it felt like an eternity. Her flashlight suddenly switched back on, exposing the cannibalistic woman once again. Devola backed away after noticing her approach.
The woman advanced on Devola's position rapidly, crawling toward her on all fours. Her limbs bent in wild ways. Her bones produced loud snaps as they were purposefully dislocated. The android gripped Cruel Oath as tightly as she could, bracing herself for an inevitable attack.
Her flashlight flickered out once again. She dashed backward just to buy herself some much-needed time. The flashlight came to life a second later. Devola's eyes widened. She was expecting that flesh-eater to be mere inches away from her face. That was not the case. In fact, the intruder had seemingly vanished.
Devola frantically shined her light in every direction. There was no trace of an elven woman's presence. She was all alone.
It was just an illusion.
An oddly specific illusion.
Rationalizations for the encounter crept into her fragmenting mind. There had to be an explanation. It could have been the awful lighting that was playing tricks on her. The stress of living with a Legionnaire she had no means of defending herself against. 9S's madness rubbing off on her. Her sister's neglect. It could be any number of things but surely what she was seeing was merely a product of more mundane phenomena.
As she worked to reassure herself that what she saw was not in fact the ghost of knife-eared cannibal, a different phenomenon made itself known. She heard something moving about in the ventilation shafts above her. The stomping of tiny feet accompanied by strange, infantile cries.
They drew closer.
Closer until Devola heard a crash on the other side of the room. Something broke through and dropped in from the ceiling. She was quick to illuminate that something.
A small, pale body emerged from a pile of debris. A face stared back at her. A visage that had the pudgy distinct features of a human baby. For but a moment, Devola's programmed protectiveness over the very concept of humanity went absolutely haywire. The sight of the "child" caused ancient protocols to come alive. For once in her life, the guilt that constantly plagued her went numb and gave way to priority functions.
It was a human that stood before her. A real, breathing human. She was overcome with the hope that she and her sister could finally, truly attune for their sins provided they manage to protect this little creature. Her woes and fears drifted away, but only momentarily did it last.
The longer she examined the writhing infant, the more she came to the dreadful realization that there was something terribly… terribly wrong with this picture.
The baby's features were most certainly human. Fat cheeks and large eyes. An extremely tiny body. Exactly what she would expect a human child to look like. Squeaking crankily, but ultimately, the sounds it made were distinctly human. The "human's" expression, on the other hand, disturbed her. The face that thing made at her was twisted with pure malice. Its dark maw was left wide open, exposing dueling rows of needle-like teeth.
It was the arms and legs that truly bothered Devola. They were not human at all. The limbs looked as though they belonged on a fly. A pair of semi-transparent insectoid wings were spotted on the monster's back.
Whatever that thing was, it could not human. Devola realized that almost immediately yet the preprogrammed desire to assist the potential human was still overpowering. She fought against her own instincts all while the creature started to advance, crying and whining with a cursed voice that sent chills down Devola's spine.
The wretched thing attempted to take flight but the wings were not quite strong enough to hoist the creature's body up more than a few feet. The flutter of those wings produced a psychotic buzzing sound.
That infantile aberration got way too close for comfort. It practically flung itself through the air, insect-like claws drawn and ready to eviscerate her. Despite all of those protective protocols, survival instincts ultimately won out. Devola dropped her flashlight and took Cruel Oath in both hands. She missed the first swing. She felt the demon's claws sink into her left arm. The thing flew past her and left a large, painful gash as it went.
Any hope she may have had of this thing being just another ghost was immediately dashed. There truly was no other option but to kill that thing lest it do her in first.
The creature flew at her for a second time. She blocked its claws with her sword. A loud metallic clash rang out. The abomination snarled and cackled. The sounds it made were uncomfortably similar to that of a human. Those uncanny noises made the fight all the more difficult for her to contend with.
It recovered from her counter in mid-air. An event that she did not have a hope of seeing. Without her light, she could only perceive so much. Only when she felt the thing grab hold of her lustrous blade did she realize that it was not about to allow her any more breathing space.
Her attempts to fling the monstrosity off came far too late. The demon practically threw itself at her. Rows of sharp teeth dug into her shoulder. It left her even more frantic. The idea of being eaten alive caused her to flail about wildly, ignoring her training entirely. She eventually threw the thing off.
The small grotesquerie landed and let out a nauseating cry. Her follow-up attempt to impale the creature whilst it was down and helpless failed. The monster squirmed away right as she stabbed Cruel Oath into the floor.
In a flash, the insect-like baby fluttered its wings about. The beast took to the air and circle back around. It slashed Devola's back as she worked to yank her sword free.
She winced in pain. Devola finally pulled her sword loose and checked her surroundings. She soon spotted the demon's outline. She relied on the glistening of her target's flesh and the movements it made to find the thing's whereabouts.
The monster landed a fair distance away from her, but it was clearly moving in a position to reengage her. Its wings fluttered about, allowing it to bounce off the ground and hover about like a wasp.
It twirled around in the dark and lunged at her yet again. Devola properly readied herself. She swung Cruel Oath at just the correct time. She felt the blade connect to a soft target. The beast's head was suddenly severed from its tiny shoulders.
The fight may have been won swiftly but the encounter did not leave Devola unscathed, neither physically nor mentally.
She collapsed to her knees, panting and recoiling in fear.
Amos was the first to enter that cursed abode. 9S noted how he often grumbled to himself as they returned from whatever bloody errands they ran. Something about the property did not seem to sit well with the hulking Legionnaire.
9S could relate to the feeling. There was always something particularly off about the building he sought shelter in. Nothing that could not be ignored from his experience, but it was definitely there. He could not deny that much.
The boy chatted idly at his salty friend. Whether Amos was truly listening or not, he could only guess, but 9S kept rambling on regardless. He fell silent when he heard an odd croaking near the floor. 9S looked down to find a rather large toad sitting at his feet. The thing croaked once more at him before hopping away.
"Hmm… So, anyway. Like I was saying. We should probably plant that charge in their maintenance area and…"
9S went quiet yet again. Something caught Amos' attention. The soldier took out his flashlight and switched it on. The light illuminated Devola who they found sitting against a wall, hunched over. She shook in fear, nervously pulling and tugging at her own hair. She did not seem to notice the spotlight on her.
"Devola!"
9S rushed over to investigate her. Without the need to be asked, Amos took out his rifle and started checking corners.
The first thing 9S noticed was the cut along her arm and the blood on her shoulder. The sight of it nearly sent him into a blind fit of rage.
"Who did this to you," he hissed with contempt. "Was it the Resistance!?"
Devola flinched at his voice, though, she calmed once she got a good look at his face. 9S drew back at the sight of her eyes. They were filled with a genuine terror. A look he had never seen from either her, her sister, or much of anyone for that matter. As though she were performing emotional alchemy on him, the utterly murderous rage he felt suddenly dissolve into a quiet dread.
She shook her head at him. Even her movements were off.
"This place," she whispered to him. "This place is evil. Pure evil…"
That foreboding admission drew Amos' attention. He wrapped up his brief patrol and returned to the pair of distressed androids.
9S gently shook her. A desperate attempt to snap her out of that traumatized state. "Devola, what are you talking about?"
"Evil," she repeated. "Evil. Evil. Evil!"
"Calm down! Where's your sister?"
"I-I don't know. I can't find her."
The mere mention of her sister's missing whereabouts left Devola in tears. Her words did not exactly fill 9S with confidence, but he held onto his composure.
Suddenly, a voice rang out from behind.
"What's going on?"
9S and Amos both turned. Devola gave no reaction. They spotted Popola rushing toward them. They both took notice of the peculiar staff she carried but neither of them bothered to address it. That weapon was the least of anyone's concern.
The scanner stepped back, allowing Popola easy access to her distressed twin. Popola was quick to inspect the injuries she sustained.
"What happened," asked Popola. A question that was clearly directed at him rather than her sister.
"No idea," 9S admitted. "We just got back. Where have you been?"
"We were out exploring," Popola commented.
She searched Devola for any further injuries, and eventually found several deep cuts on her back.
"Secure this area," she demanded in a sharp hiss. "Kill whatever did this to her. I'll stay here and dress her wounds."
"Understood," 9S nodded. He did not dare question her order, nor did he have much motivation or reason to in the first place. He turned to his companion.
"You ready?"
Amos checked his weapon's dual chambers and gave a firm, unflinching nod.
"Pod, you come with us. We'll need the light."
153 offered no protest. She switched on her spotlight and followed them deeper into the building.
Devola never struck 9S as weak-willed. That fact left him dreading whatever they were on the verge of discovering up there. Whatever left her in such a state must have been truly horrific.
Methodically, the trio checked every room, every nook, every cranny. It took them hours to sweep each floor. They turned up absolutely nothing. Not a shred of evidence regarding an intrusion was found. That was the case up until they reached the twelfth floor.
It was in one of the rooms on that level where they found a corpse. A beheaded abomination with the body crossed between that of a human and a fly. A disturbing sight that 9S would not soon forget. He had no real reaction or comment to it. There was nothing he could say. It was simply unexplainable and he left it at that.
The group then proceeded to check the thirteenth floor. Their home. Nothing was out of the ordinary there. That trend of turning up nothing of interest died once again upon reaching the rooftop.
The sight of 9S's little experiment.
By in large, the scene on the roof was just as they had left it. An eerie circle filled with arcane symbols. All of it remained completely unchanged. That alone was not the issue. It was the corpse at the center of the occult madness that spawned concern in 9S. The unnamed android was covered in blood. Her torso was left eviscerated.
Amos was the first to approach the gory mess. He kept his rifle trained on it as though he were expecting the body to rise and attack him. Cautiously, Amos tapped the body with his boot, lightly kicking it just to see if he would get a reaction. The android was still very much dead.
9S advanced on the body to get a better look at the massive wound.
"The hell happened here," he asked over the sound of constant thunder. He knelt and inspected the way the bones bent and broke. How the organs were torn open.
"It looks like something burst out of her."
Amos nodded in agreement.
9S immediately made a connection between that thing they found on the twelfth floor and the nature of this wounded corpse. A body that previously had only a few fatal lacerations around the neck area as well as minor cuts likely caused by all those thorns.
"You don't think… No. No, this has gotta be some sort of coincidence."
The Legionnaire looked on at 9S with utter disbelief at his assessment of what seemed like such an obvious chain of events.
"Someone must have come along while we weren't looking and mutilated this body."
Amos hissed in response. He spun around, pointing to the elevated area they stood in. The coast was desolate. They were entirely alone out here. They were also on top of an ancient structure that was not exactly small. A fact 9S decided to ignore.
"No! Someone came up here and did this to mess with us! It must be the Resistance, or machines, or something! There's no way this weird circle did anything! Thinking that way is just insane!"
"Pod 153 to Unit 9S. This support unit was not aware of the operations you were undertaking up here or their purpose, but I do see Amos' argument. Question: Even on the improbable chance that someone was aware of what you were keeping here, what motive would they have to tamper with this body?"
"Like I said," 9S snapped. His voice rose in frustration, causing 153 to flinch. "It's gotta be Anemone! She's trying to get into our heads! They just won't leave us alone! They want to kill the twins! They want to murder Devola and Popola! This is the second time they've made a move against us! They need to pay! I'll eat their hearts!"
Frustrated with this nonsensical blame game, Amos threw his hands up in the air. He stormed off without giving a hint about where he was headed. It did not take him long to return. He stepped back out into the rain with the severed head of that monster in his hand. He quickly advanced on 9S and practically shoved the head in his face to ensure that the manic boy could see it clearly.
"Yeah," 9S hissed, reeling back in revulsion. "And what about it? It was probably just some weird machine or…"
Amos threw the head at him. It bounced off his tunic and landed at his feet.
"What's your problem, Amos!? This sort of thing has happened before! Look at Adam and Eve! They look just as human as that thing! I'm sure you've got pictures of them on your wall!"
The furious beast balled his sodium hands into fists but just barely managed to hold back a desire to punch some sense into 9S. He started pacing the roof, opting to blow off his steam before he wound up knocking the boy's fragile head clean off his shoulders.
Summoning as much courage as she could, 153 once again made her presence known and spoke out. An act she often tried to refrain from, given 9S's absolute disgust of her and his tendency to make that fact known. Both through physical and verbal abuse.
"If it truly is nonsensical then why did you create this circle in the first place?"
9S gave the question some considerable thought. Even during the process of making it, 9S could not justify the time he spent. Something unseen compelled him. He assumed it to be the cherubs beckoning him to draw up some elaborate prayer to them. Surely the innocent cherubs that tended to the heavens above would not lead him to bring about a horror like this. He could not fathom those benevolent angels wishing to harm either of the twins.
The appearance of the monster was undeniable no matter how much he tried to rationalize it. The face of a baby. The thing looked just as he imagined a cherub to appear. Of course, the insect-like nature of the infant's body was not at all part of his vision.
"I don't know. I was told to make it…"
"By whom?"
9S shook his head. "I can't… I can't say who."
"What we have here," 153 informed. "Is an android's corpse with wounds strongly suggesting that something spawned inside its body clawed its way out. We have a strange circle and symbols with unknowable origins. And finally, we have this creature's corpse. This is not a coincidence nor is it a conspiracy. Hypothesis: Unit 9S has somehow summoned this thing into the vicinity from an unknown location."
"You do understand how insane that sounds, right?"
"I also understand how insane it is for Unit Devola to have to defend herself against a monstrous human infant with wings and limbs like that of an insect. I assumed you of all people would relate to this sort of strange phenomenon. Given the very reason you resurrected the twins in the first place…"
153 only noticed her mistake when she noticed 9S glaring at. Utterly incensed by the fact that she dared mention the one subject she was forbidden from speaking of. He was on the verge of reaching for a stone to chunk at her when he suddenly froze in place.
He examined the scene once again. The head, that mutilated body, the circle. All of it was connected. There was simply no denying the obvious.
"You're right," he relented.
A statement that left 153 confused as to whether she should be afraid for her life or relieved. For but a fleeting microsecond, the pod thought she saw the red hue of 9S's eyes waver ever so slightly.
"I almost got her killed…"
The boy turned to Amos. His pale ally seemed to calm down once 9S finally accepted the situation for what it was.
"Sorry, friend. I should've taken the hint when you refused to help me draw the circle. I guess you would know a thing or two about all this."
Amos replied with a nonchalant shrug.
With due apologies given, 9S refocused himself on the task at hand.
"Pod," 9S ordered. His voice still seethed with hatred. "Don't you dare mention any of this to either of them. Got it!? If Popola finds out, she'd kill me."
"Understood."
"For now, we need to destroy this circle," 9S continued. "We'll burn the bodies and wipe our hands of this mess."
The sensation of rain showering down on him caused 9S to look up. He grinned oddly as he gazed at the impenetrable layer of storm clouds.
"This rain," he laughed. "It's driving me crazy. Will it ever end? Will we ever see the light of the sun again?"
No one bothered to answer that question.
Note: This chapter was a bit on the thick side. I managed to get this done in a week because I was already anticipating it so I worked on a couple of scenes in advance while releasing earlier chapters. The detailed outlines I had for it also helped speed things along.
The insectoid baby was heavily inspired by an enemy Doom 3. I did consider having a proper Watcher show up, but I felt this idea was creepier. I also wanted to keep Devola's half of the chapter contained indoors so a smaller monster was needed.
I briefly started working on an idea I had for a Replicant/Gestalt story that was to have the same vibe as this chapter. It was supposed to be five chapters and once again involving dark corridors, a flashlight, freaky Watcher-related monsters, and the Seeds of Destruction from Drakengard's Ending B. I ultimately shelved the idea.
The cameo of Arioch was something I threw in at the last minute. I never intended for her to be a character in this story. She was supposed to have a role in Crimson Eyes, but I just never got that far so I gave a nod to her here.