Monika swung her sword on the last head of the last chaos daemons that was spawned from the sector that she was supposed to take care of a week ago. She still hasn't gotten a good excuse from her superior as disappearing for a week in the army without any reason might face severe punishment. Surely, she can just go ask her sister to deal with this problem but she's already sick of having Nova constantly harassing her saying: oh~ how cute, it seems like someone forgot to grow up, it's fine, your big sis will take care of you. Even thinking about this, it has already started making her barf.
On her way back home, she decides to pay a visit to an old friend of hers, Noel. They came a long way together both in the army and school. In fact, they are more like sisters to each other if anything else. Noel always makes the best food for Monika whenever she came to visit, this is exactly what Monika is trying to do today. Also, she needs to talk to someone about her recent adventure, if anyone else knows about the fact that she stayed with Trazyn for a week, she will surely be prosecuted for high treason.
Monika knocks on the door, she put on her smiling face and beams with energy. When the door opens, it's the usual girly meets and greets, but Monika can tell that Noel was at some point crying before entering the house: "Aw, Noel what happened?"
"My boyfriend broke up with me..." Noel said while looking sad.
"Oh..." Monika however became less bothered: "Was it your fault or his?"
"I don't know." Noel lays her head on Monika's shoulder: "Why can't I find the right man? There's always something wrong that will happen, either is because of him or me. "Noel suddenly has an idea: "You know...?"
"No, Noel. I will not be your girlfriend, I told you when we were in high school, and I will tell you the same thing. Also, come on. This is like your fifth relationship this quarter of a year!" Monika actually can't understand how Noel can keep throwing herself into this kind of situation all the time.
"Meanie!" Noel pouts: " Can we have even one kiss? You know, if I am as beautiful as you, I'd be enjoying myself wayyy better than whatever you are now. Or you are the type of person who would leave her first kiss to your future husband? "Noel's expression suddenly became evil: "Unless... You have someone on your mind?"
Monika suddenly got startled: "I... no, you stop being ridiculous, also I am starving."
Noel crosses her hands and knees on the ground: "Thanks the emperor, Monika finally begging to fall in love."
Monika grabs Noel's head and locks it with her arms: "Stop saying nonsense!"
"Aw, aw, aw. I am sorry... I will stop..." Monika then releases Noel, but Noel still has that evil/perverted look on her face: "By the way, I noticed that you were absent from work for a week... Unless..."
Just when Monika is about to leap up and grab Noel again, she immediately ran to the kitchen and prepares for dinner. Monika is sitting on the sofa, deep in thought, frankly, she's embarrassed that her emotion is so easily can be read, if Nova sees this, she might go berserk immediately and lecture Monika about basic standards. Monika however did not ignore everything Noel said. When she was with Trazyn, for once in her life she felt... calm, instead of seeing things completely hostile around her, she felt more comfortable interacting with a soulless machine.
That's heresy... Monika thought, also she doesn't think that Trazyn likes her company, she felt like he was just being polite most of the time. Thinking about this, she shakes her head to get rid of this thought and proceed to the kitchen to observe Noel's cooking.
A few days later, "Ehhh, so…. boring." Monika looked at herself in the mirror, completely lifeless. Ever since Trazyn went away for the meeting, Monika just realized how boring her life used to be. Every day without purpose or just pointlessly floating around like a leaf on a river. She could go to work in the Navy but when she thought about working under Nova, she couldn't help herself with a feeling of disgust.
Monika and Nova weren't like that as always, they used to be very close and shared almost everything together. When both of them grew up they realized that their interest has also grown apart. Nova went for a path for power and control, yet Monika chose freedom above all else. Monika never wanted to be shackled in a situation that she cannot do anything about. Maybe in some way, both of them chose the same path. It's just Nova chose to be the master of everyone, yet Monika is more self-centered.
Monika looks at her own eyes through the mirror. At some point, she's thankful that she's gifted with such beautiful assets, yet she feels like something was lost. One of the reasons that she went roam around the world is to find where her heart belongs, for many people is to see the world but for her, she doesn't know where she should put her heart to, what's she's doing is not in a romantic way, because she would know that. Knowledge? She's indeed a "bookworm" when she finds something that grabs her attention. She kept confronting her mirrored self-trying to find a reason why she would have so much fun during the time with Trazyn yet not her old life.
After she's getting a bit tired of it, she wears her iconic jacket and steps outside of her house. It's sunny, she likes it when the weather is warm. She always has the problem of cold hands especially when stressed out. As she walks aimlessly, she sees a pawn shop. She shrugs, thinking since she has nothing to do, why won't she just go in and have a look.
The pawnshop is small, there's really nothing to be seen but a few old tools and decorations. As Monika was about to leave, she stopped, a strange pyramid looking decoration grabbed her attention. She pays a bit extra for its intended price and tells the owner to wrap it well, it's for a friend she said. That little artifact's top can be spined for playing music. But when the music plays out, she does not recognize it. But Monika still thinks this might be an interesting gift.
Friend? A mechanical robot is my friend. She left out a small chuckle, she felt pity for herself. Then she sits on a bench in the park and starts looking up at the sky. The sky is blue like Nova's eyes, during her childhood they used to look each other in the eyes for hours without tiring, and eventually, both of them fell asleep.
"A lot of memories came back…." She mumbles to herself, for some reason, she doesn't really remember her childhood or anything that happened before the academie, even though she has an excellent memory. She never thought about why, maybe it's just the gods are fooling with her.
A medium-sized orange cat walk towards her then proceeds to lie down next to Monika. "Are you also bored, kitty cat?" she starts petting its head, the cat makes the comfortable snoring sound. "Can I tell you a secret?... I've always wanted to be a dancer. A …. solo dancer on the stage with classical music playing in the background." She then puts the cat on her lap, the cat did not resist instead submitting itself to let Monika do whatever she wanted to him.
"A lot of things happened these days, first I got my ass kicked in a single beatdown then I made an unusual friend. And guess what, i miss these days!" She spoke with a slightly loud tone as if she's releasing her discomfort. "Then, I found out that my own sister is undermining my friendship and dating a subordinate of hers. Why couldn't she keep it in her pants? I never tried to interfere with her life." The cat looks at Monika as if it agrees with her.
She smiles with her eyes like the crooked moon " what do you understand about us? …. You just need to exist and people already want to love you." She gently scratches the cat's back. "No one ever really falls in love with me, or I've ever done that to anyone." When she was in the academie, a lot came to her for different reasons, lust, greed, or promise of lifetime bondage. She's seen them all but, in the end, she never really liked any of their proposals.
The cat suddenly jumps off Monika's lap, then a shadow covers her from the sun in front of Monika. " Are you really that bored? Sitting in the park and talking to a cat? Really Monika?" It's still the same sarcastic mechanical voice.
Suddenly sparks lights up from her eyes" Trazyn? What are you doing here?" Monika stands up with the gift hiding on the back. She's excited.
" I am here because I'm done with my business, it's really hard to find something to do when you are not here making a mess." Trazyn said it to Monika while purposely making her mad.
Monika knows but she wants Trazyn to say the words. She just pretends that she isn't impressed with what he said," Well, I guess you don't really want me around then?" she frowns and makes an unhappy face.
Trazyn has been alive for ages and of course, he instantly sees through what Monika wants, he directs the conversation to what Monika is holding. Monika's face flushes a bit. At this point, Trazyn starts to like this human girl who dropped into his long never-ending life. For him, she's just one of the passengers of his life. But surely a memorable individual.
"Well, how do I put it together. At some point…. I want you to make a mess in my gallery so I can find things to do." This answer is good enough for Monika, she then gives Trazyn a big wide hug, while Trazyn is a machine, but he still has emotions, the Necrons might have a non-organic body, but their minds are still intact thanks to the ancient technology of the C'tan or at least the memory and personality part only applies to high-status Necrons.
"I got a gift for you." As she gives it to him, she cannot hide the excited look on her face. Trazyn was impressed by the choice from Monika. Maybe this little trinket doesn't really worth anything but as a collector, he sees everything has a special value, either emotional or physical.
Trazyn nods in gratitude, but the real gift he will cherish is the look on Monika's face when he was opening the package. For him being able to find something to care about might be the best gift he ever received from a human. For Monika, she's just very glad that Trazyn also enjoys her company, maybe this type of mutual affection is something Monika is seeking all along.
Later that night, the new dried eye bar reopens after a few weeks of renovation, this was done due to one of the agreements between Dreyer and Trazyn. Trazyn agreed to find a place for it to be relocated and make sure that he will get more business than usual.
However, Dreyer made a mistake: He did not specify the planet or rather dimension. Trazyn gave him an abandoned dimension for him to store trash. Well, even though it's out of nowhere but inside it's a hub for beings of inter dimensions. High intelligence beings all over the universe have found a place to forget about the war and just have fun.
Dreyer found this place very hard to accept at first place, especially for an imperium officer who's been fighting Xeno life for decades, it is still very new for him. But seeing all those different people who are in this hub having a drink or even casually knocking each other's skull out, kind of makes him feel satisfied at some point.
"Well, be sure that you do not let your emotion take over, for what's going to happen…" Trazyn said it in a concerning tone.
"Me? why? You said you are taking me to stroll around but...oh." when Monika sees Dreyer, she narrowed her eyes and began to take deep breaths then she shoots a look of 'are you serious?' to Trazyn. Trazyn just responded with a gesture of 'well I told you. Why wouldn't Monika be angry when she sees the person that shamed her for the past few weeks and probably the rest of her life. A fighter's pride will demand a rematch; however, she did promise to Trazyn that she will hold her anger.
Dreyer sees Monika and Trazyn:" My, My, isn't this the young lady I met quite a while ago? How are you doing these days?" He gives a polite grin and extends his right hand to Monika. But she's terrible at holding her emotions, everyone can feel the killing gaze she's projecting from her beautiful eyes.
Trazyn took over and shook his hand:" We are doing pretty well. I like what you did with this place!" Trazyn is a bit amazed by Dreyer's decoration ability of the hub, it genuinely looks good. It doesn't look too luxurious but surely, it's clean and has a class.
Dreyer sees the expression on Monika, he gives both of them a polite nod then proceeds to meet other customers. Suddenly an old man with a green left eye and dark right eye sways in front of them:" I can hear some drama is brewing here." He scans Monika from head to toe then gives out a big bright smile: " Oh dear, you are such a beautiful lady." He speaks with a weird accent but from the way he looks and his nice gray suit, he at least has a human origin. He then does a hand-kiss to Monika. " May I ask what the name of yours is, darling?"
Surprisingly, because of how well he executed all of those moves, for once Monika didn't get weirded out, instead, she thinks that the old gentleman in front of them is quite different than the usual drunken old man she met before and also, he's not intimidating in anyways. Usually, people like him must have hidden a lot of stories under his harmless-looking face. "Monika, Monik Terra." She replies with a comfortable grin. "And you are….?"
"People call me Wednesday, but you can call me whatever you want darling." He gave a very genuine and polite nod to both of them. But Trazyn doesn't really seem impressed.
"She's with me Wednesday, you can now take back your schemes and let us enjoy ourselves, will you?" Trazyn sounds like he's known this guy for a really long time and thus is trying to dismiss him as soon as possible. Then he uses the back of his hand to move Wednesday away from the entrance.
"I will talk to you later, young lady," he says while waving his hand. Monika is teased and left out of a cute chuckle. Trazyn sees and disappointingly shakes his head.
"I like him," Monika said it but in reality, she wants to see Trazyn's reaction to these words, she's been constantly trying Trazyn's limit because it just seems that he never gets startled by anything. But not this time. Also, she wants to know more about him, it is hard to find a Xeno overlord that's able to communicate with you instead of killing you on sight.
Trazyn looks at Monika in a weird judging way:" Do you even know who he is? Or what he's capable of?" His tone makes him sound like Monika is plain stupid to take a liking on a person like Wednesday.
Monika didn't like it: "No, but I found him funny, which is something outside of knowledge, knowing a way to communicate also show's one's overall intellect." She always has a principle of fighting back if others attack her. Monika then ignores his stare and keeps advancing, but perhaps this is the first time they started to argue on something this minor. She crosses her arms:" Are you going to tell me who he is, or keep telling me what not to do? You act like I am a child, so you keep telling me riddles." she said it with a minor angry tone, maybe it is also triggered by the fact that Trazyn takes her to the hub where she got beaten up, and she's pretty sure that Dreyer told the people on the other table about their stories. The funny part is that age-wise, Monika is indeed a child, if Trazyn wants he can furtherly piss Monika off.
Suddenly someone hugs Monika from behind and leaves a kiss mark on her cheek, it's Nova. Monika wipes her face and asks:" Why are you here? Or How did you get here?!" Nova is the last person she wants to see besides Dreyer in this place, also the fact that she's hanging out with a machine isn't helping her case as well.
But Nova didn't ask any question, instead, a rare smiling face that's full of life and comfort keeps reappearing on Nova: "I am having a date, with…" she then pulls Maverick to her:" him!" Nova's face is full of happiness, which is something that Monika hasn't seen for a long time.
"Well, I guess you are right Trazyn, everything is welcomed here. Even the living embodiment of hell. " Monika is dissing Nova to take her revenge on Nova sabotaging her friendship with Noel. Also, she couldn't help to feel a bit... lonely, if Nova can even find someone to date with then why can't she do it? She then sees Trazyn, she suddenly has a great idea.
"This is my date, his name is Trazyn." Monika smiles brightly
Everyone, even Trazyn is shocked by what Monika said, he wants to laugh out loud because of how ridiculous what Monika just said, but then Trazyn reads the situation more carefully, he then puts his arm around Monika's shoulder and pulls her towards him. Somehow the knowledge he thought he would never use will be used in a place like this. Incidentally, Monika found a lot of Novels while strolling around the library, she read some of them and a few made her blush after a few chapters because of the contents.
Monika lays her head on Trazyn both of them looking at Nova with an expression of victory, Monika is glad that Trazyn is playing along, normally not even a human can read the situation like this. But she's happy that now she has another friend.
Nova wasn't really feeling anything particular at this very moment, but normally she would 100% bury Trazyn in some shallow grave in a few days. But today she's on a real date and she's happy about it. However, she doesn't want Monika to slip away from humiliating her in front of her date: "Oh really? That's great! Why don't we have a double date then? You can talk about funny things and gossip around~..."
Without Nova finishing it, Trazyn answered before Monika can:" Sure, let's sit at the table over there." he points his finger towards that place. He then whispers to Monika;" You do the talking; I'll adapt it very fast. A lesson needs to be taught here."
Monika remains silenced and nods her head. But inside she's excited and conflicted at the same time. Excited because she can finally take a great hit on Nova, conflicted because she hasn't told him that Nova and she are sisters, sure, it is fun to mess with a jerk, but she hopes that Trazyn won't take it too far.
"So, how did you guys meet? I know for a fact that on your planet, we don't have any Xeno activities." Nova started with a topic that will infringe on the conflict between these two because Monika never knew they knew each other and she's sure that Monika also hasn't told Trazyn that they are sisters.
Before Trazyn could say anything, Monika replied:" We met at a bar and we hit off pretty well right off the bat, our relationships started at that point." A half-truth lies. Used to confuse the enemy more efficiently than either a plain lie or truth. It's the same thing that led the necrontyr race to damnation: "We then strolled around his gallery and we had fun."
"Oh really? Because, if I didn't call Trazyn that you were dying like a cockroach that got stepped on. Your relationships wouldn't even start at that point." Nova emphasizes the word "I":" So, I think at some point you do owe me gratitude, little sis." Nova looking at Monika with a narcissistic look. A look that triggers Monika ever since Nova did it for the first time, Nova is sick of being nice towards these two, now she only felt upset and disappointed, upset because Trazyn actually managed to get away by lying to Monika and disappointed that Monika actually stayed with Trazyn even knowing him is a machine, a Xeno, an enemy that the entire empire hate.
"Thank you, sis." Surprisingly Monika didn't get triggered or show any excessive emotion, all because she's more confused at the moment. She starts to realize that she probably doesn't know anything at this point.
"Wait... you are the sister that Nova holds dear the most in life?" Trazyn just realized it, he didn't know because Monika and Nova's personality is so different and their looks is also somewhat varied, one is blond hair with blue-green eyes, and another is crimson-colored hair with emerald, green eyes, but their face symmetrical analysis did show similarities. But Trazyn didn't really pay attention to that when he first saw Monika.
"Trazyn... one more word, I will make sure you will end up in the garbage can." Nova's killer gaze is terrifying.
"Sis, he's, my friend. I will not allow you to touch him for even one bit." Monika also stared right into Nova's eyes, she's not as terrifying but enough to make people take her seriously.
Maverick and Trazyn meanwhile just plainly looking at their drama. Maverick at some point knew that Trazyn is the person that caused the drama in the oil rig. But he's thankful. If it isn't because of him, he wouldn't be invited to Nova's house then bond with her over the night. He knows that most of the time Nova is just fooling around with Monika, that's why he doesn't want to be involved in their personal relationships.
Seeing Monika is at a disadvantage, Trazyn changed the topic:" so. How did you guys find this place?"
"Well, one of Maverick's siblings is the friend of the owner, so naturally we came to visit," Nova replied with a slight hint of superiority.
All of those small talks give Monika a bit of time to recover from the information overload, she doesn't really blame anyone; it's just she really needs time to think alone for a while. This isn't really a problem before, that changed until she met Trazyn. She's happy and he could always give an answer to Monika about almost everything. Making herself almost mindless. She's happy but she's not satisfied, she misses the adventure of discovering new knowledge instead of just taking whatever she's available.
After the 'chat', Nova, and Maverick went away somewhere else, at that moment, Monika told Trazyn what she was thinking and asked him if she made the right choice.
Trazyn replied with a serious tone:" We've had fun, but after every party, there's an end for that. If you think you need a bit of time to think about your life, go. After all, I am persistent and immortal. I will wait for you at the end of the day if you ever want to come back."
Hearing this, Monika hugs Trazyn's cold mechanical body, but for some reason, she felt the warmth that she never felt from another human being.