2B reflected on the changing situation in the world, normally she wouldn't do something like this so close to a battle, but clearing one's mind of inner conflict was key to fighting at one hundred percent, and piloting a flight suit wasn't that complicated outside of combat. Her pod being more than capable of controlling it so she could focus on other matters.

One might think the human might be the source of her current thoughts, but they'd be wrong. She wasn't actually that concerned about him, her current understanding was that he wasn't even from this reality, and had nothing to do with her and the rest of the androids creation. He wouldn't be able to provide the answers she sought.

No, she was far more concerned with her changed orders, as an executioner model she was expected to hunt down rebellious androids, or androids that learned too much. Now she wasn't supposed to kill them, or even capture them for memory wipes. They were to be brought back and sent with the human, where they couldn't cause problems.

That by itself should have been good news, she would never again need to kill 9S, never have to look into eyes that no longer recognized her. No longer would she need to shove a sword through his chest and watch the life fade from his eyes, never again need to see the betrayal on his face.

But if 9S found out the truth, as she was sure he would, he was far too smart for his own good, she would have to send him with the human, where she would never see 9S again. She didn't know what was worse, that she was upset that she wouldn't get to see 9S again, kill him, or that she felt relief that the cycle would end.

Pod 42 interrupted her thoughts with an alert "friendly air units inbound, unit composition 2 bombers and 4 assault planes, with accompanying interceptor drones." shaking her head to clear the last of the dark thoughts out of her head she turned to look at the new arrivals.

6 larger planes were in a wide formation, the sleeker 4 at the edges with the bulkier and larger pair of planes protected in the center, the sleeker planes had 4 guns on them, and had visible missile bays, the larger planes had two more turrets, more missile pods, and what looked like bomb chutes.

Each of the assault planes had ten smaller plane shaped drones with them, while the bombers had to have twenty.

2B had fought alongside planes before, a few resistance camps had working airfields, but those planes looked worn and battered. These looked brand new, if someone had told her they had been built within the day she wouldn't have doubted them.

If there was one thing she liked about the human it was the supplies he was handing out, she had seen dozens of YoRhA androids training with the weapons he had supplied, and while she preferred her sword she didn't doubt their effectiveness.

Her flight leader sent her Pod an order to change formation, making room for the new arrivals, the assault planes taking the lead with the bombers in the center. The flight suits were bound to be more agile than their plane counterparts, given the abundance of maneuvering jets and their ability to rapidly speed up and turn.

It took only moments for the new formation to form and stabilize and once it had she received a message that she could only assume went out to the whole team, a female voice spoke "the Bombers are highly durable, if we come under fire feel free to use them as cover. They can take a beating." that had to be Balistraia, the only gendered one of the humans machines.

She took note of the recommendation, the other androids might be wary about hiding behind a human's property and letting it get damaged but she had no such issues.

It was a few more minutes with only the sound of wind and engines filling her ears before the flight lead spoke up "we are about to enter hostile air space, ready up" at that all the weapons on the flight suits warmed up, and she heard several thunks from the bomber next to her as its turrets began scanning the air.

With the immediate danger of combat all emotions fled her mind, along with any thoughts that didn't belong on a battlefield, they were forbidden after all.

--

It wasn't long before laser fire came from the machine's base, and 2B watched as three of the assault planes and three of her comrades were shot from the sky. The flight leader included. She felt a brief pang at their deaths but they would be brought back on the bunker within the day, most of them only missing a few minutes of memory.

The only flight units that had survived had been the ones to actually use the bombers for cover, but even then the laser beams would scorch everything around where they hit, and it was much too far to return fire.

A few machines had attacked during the laser barrage but the machine guns on the bombers had handled them, and 2B and the rest of the remaining flight units hadn't needed to leave cover.

But they had finally closed range enough that the anti air lasers couldn't target them, that also meant that they were close enough to get attacked by the swarms of flying machines though. The fighting got bad enough that the rest of the flight units and the remaining assault plane got damaged and grounded or outright destroyed, leaving only 2B, a swarm of interceptors, and two heavily battered bombers.

One of the bombers was down an engine and had part of its wing shorn off, the other was riddled with small holes, and 2B paid minor attention to the small drones flying around both and patching them. Eventually the holes were patched and the engine was fixed, though they didn't seem to be able to do anything about the wing.

2Bs flight unit was unscathed though, the bombers had blocked the bulk of the incoming fire and she had dodged the rest of it.

Still even if she was unharmed she was the only ground unit left, the mission was compromised. She didn't have the firepower needed to take out an engel on her own, and the bombers wouldn't last much longer under sustained fire.

"2B to Operator O6, all other remaining allied ground units have been eliminated, the operation is compromised, awaiting further orders."

"O - Operator to 2B, we need you to rendezvous with Unit 9S and begin gathering information on the local terrain."

"Understood"

It seemed she would be meeting back up with 9S a little sooner than expected, a small knot of dread formed in her heart, accompanied by a growing sense of longing. Her thoughts were interrupted by a transmission from Balistraia, "Actually we still have three ground units, you and the two mark 2 spidertrons." they were rapidly approaching the interior of the factory, and she wasn't sure if the bombers would be capable of following her.

Her worries were for nothing though, as the bombers showed decent agility once they stopped just tanking the machine's fire. They were nowhere near as agile as a flight suit but they dodged pipes and conduits with precision, missing most by only thin margins.

The interceptor drones were more than agile enough within the tight corridors though, and 2B soon found herself thankful for that fact as swarms of machines attacked them in the tunnels, the bombers were unable to bring the bulk of their weapons to bear. That meant half her time was spent intercepting attacks on the bombers rather than actually attacking, and without the drones she would have had to spend far more time dealing with the machines. And they might have even swarmed her.

The fighting within the tunnel was fierce enough that most of the interceptors were destroyed, either by blocking shots meant for her or by sheer weight of fire leaving them with nowhere to dodge. By the end she had actually taken a few light hits and only three of the drones were left, of the dozens that had originally been there.

That was when the larger flying machine attacked, swooping in from seemingly nowhere and immediately destroying two of the interceptors by crashing into them midair. The machine had enough intelligence to stay in the bombers blind spots, and she had to frantically dodge the dozens of blasts, the small interceptor drone following in her wake firing along with her.

She had fought these things before, you needed to destroy each connected segment before the thing would go down, but each segment broken would lessen its firepower and how quickly it could move. It wasn't long before she had whittled it down while dodging the volleys of fire.

With that the tunnel came to a sudden and abrupt end, the flight suit and bombers crashing through the wall as she ejected, flipping through the air and landing on the floor before drawing her sword and getting up from her crouch.

Her pod spoke up from just behind her "large enemy group detected" her visors sensors had already pointed them out "Yes, I'm aware of that" she immediately became a blur as she dashed towards the machine in the room, her sword easily bisecting them, within moments the machines were dead. She knew there would be more within moments though.

2B was proven right not even a moment later as more machines fell from the ceiling to surround her, but they were well within her ability to handle. She had just started wondering where she would rendezvous with the spidertrons or 9S when she heard a noise from the bombers behind her. She spared a glance away from her current fight to make sure it wasn't anything immediately hostile and saw three long metal legs tears open the sides of one of the crashed bombers, and with another screech of grinding metal the other bomber sprouted a similar pair of legs.

That would probably be the spidertrons then, the crash had most likely damaged the bombing hatches. Still she didn't spare the bombers any more attention and instead focused on her fight. It wasn't hard, and she easily dodged any attacks and it took longer to get to the machines than it took to kill them. Her pod destroyed the furthest ones with a high energy laser attack and then all the machines were dead.

She kept her guard up though, this was an enemy stronghold and she had quite literally just broken in the door. It was a few tense seconds of just the sounds of tearing metal before the next enemy appeared, a medium biped, something well within her ability to handle.

She was just about to dash forward and destroy it when the sound of metal being torn stopped and two missiles arched from the bomber location, and the medium biped detonated.

A robotic voice spoke through her comms then "Spidertron 2-1 reporting, signal jamming detected, contact with Balistraia interrupted, Unit 2B has operational command" she turned to look back at the machine talking to her, and saw a massive eight legged metal spider, the front legs were larger than the rest, though she couldn't immediately tell why. Its sensors were staring straight at her and she turned towards the second one, it was doing the same. She figured they were waiting for orders "will the bombers be fine?" The machine's sensors rotated and extended and its lightly tapped its legs on the ground in a pattern before speaking "yes, self repair programs will bring them back online, then they will leave" 2B turned to look at the bombers, both with gaping holes in their sides and missing chunks of wings. For them to be able to repair that in a short time frame was impressive.

"Then we will rendezvous with 9S and scout out the surrounding area" with that a massive claw burst through the wall, throwing rubble everywhere and nearly crushing 2B and one of the spidertrons.

AN -

another two parter. or three I don't actually know how long it will take me to write this mission.

does anyone know if the perfect dodge/counter thing is cannon? or just a gameplay feature? because I want to know if we have teleporting android ladies in combat skirts, heels, and thigh highs.

comments and reviews are neat.