.

Chapter 13: Red Ivory and Broken Memories

.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Devolva?"

"Of course it's not a good idea! But you saw him! We both did! It has to be him. It has to be!"

A pair of red-headed gynoids tromped through the thick Suburban jungle towards an uncertain destination. One, whose hair was long and straight, fidgeted nervously as they walked between the massive trees. The other, with curly hair, stomped forward confidently.

Both carried Type-3 Swords, the chainsaw blades making short work of any obstructions, be they Machine or plant.

"It's been thousands of years, Devolva. If it really was him, don't you think he'd have come to us?"

"…I don't know, Popola. Regardless of what he felt about us after the incident at the Shadowlord's Castle, he still fought alongside us when the aliens arrived. If not for his aide, we'd never have been able to…" the red-head trailed off, and her sister stood silently at her side, observing the same thing.

A house. A mansion, more specifically. Unnervingly close in appearance to the one he'd once lived in on the outskirts of town, long ago.

Devolva, for all her brashness, gulped softly as she stared at the building. Next to her, Popola patted her shoulder.

"Too late to turn back now, right?" she said with a teasing smile. Devolva snorted but nodded in agreement, before striding confidently up to the door. Next to it was a bell, and she pressed it. And again. And again.

A loud cry suddenly rang out from within the mansion, and it was nothing like a doorbell at all. In fact, it was a sound they never thought they'd hear again. A sound made by an organic being that should have gone extinct long ago.

Before either twin could comment on this impossible sound, the door was thrown open by a white-haired android, her appearance frazzled. Behind her, the sound of wailing could be heard even louder.

"I had just managed to put him down for a nap when you made that horrible sound. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't slice you both into tiny pieces for disturbing him," the irate gynoid demanded.

"U-um, well, you see, we're here for Emil," Devolva stammered out, caught off guard. Popola on the other hand narrowed her eyes at the android before her. She looked awfully familiar…

Recognition sparked in the gynoid's eyes, and she grunted. "Oh, yeah, now I remember you two. Those red-headed Resistance androids from Anemone's base, right?"

They nodded, and the android jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "Follow me. He's fixing the water heater right now, but he should be done shortly."

Had A2 not been so frazzle by caring for a fussy baby, then she might have been more suspicious of two random androids showing up out of the blue. As it was, all A2 knew was Alexander was now crying, these two were the cause, and only the fact that they knew Emil had saved them from a nasty fate.

She led the pair into a living room with surprisingly intact leather sofas. Popola sat down gingerly while her sister plopped down without hesitation and threw her feet up onto a nearby coffee table.

The android who had greeted them at the door wandered off, muttering under her breath. A few minutes after she left the crying ended, filling the house with semi-blessed silenced.

"Popola, was that actually…"

"I don't know, Devolva. It could have been an animal. If I recall, several animals had cries that sounded remarkably human-like," the prim and proper android stated. But even her words seemed unsure.

A few more minutes passed by in awkward silence before they heard the trundle of wheels on wood, and the scooter driving skeleton-bot appeared in the living room to greet the guests.

"Hey there! A2 said there were people from the Resistance here for me. I assume this is about the treaty I signed a few days ago?" Emil asked politely.

Upon seeing him, both sisters jumped to their feet, staring in awe at his face. The young-sounding android shifted uncomfortably under their gazes.

"U-um, can you not stare at me? I know I look weird and all, but it's not very polite," Emil said, only to be cut off when the twins lunged at him, throwing their arms around his body and hugging him tightly.

"It's you! It's really, really you!" Devolva cried, tears of joy leaking unbidden from her eyes.

"We're not alone. We're not alone," Popola muttered, almost to herself as her hug tightened.

"Ack! Wh-what's going on?! Why are you hugging me?!" Emil cried, backing up in an attempt to escape. It didn't work. The two refused to let go. All his movement did was cause his scooter to trip over a wooden block Alexander had left lying around earlier and he fell back, tumbling from his vehicle.

Devolva and Popola continued to cling to him, though. In fact, they remained attached to him for several hours until the rest of the household returned from their various chores and came into the living room to see Emil pinned beneath two beautiful red-headed gynoids.

"Damn, Emil! You're a player!" 9S said, giving the skull-boy a thumbs up. He had no idea what those words meant, though. They just seemed to fit.

Sebastian tilted his head. "Is Emil even capable of 'making out' as it's known? He lacks lips and a tongue, which based on all accounts are necessary components for such."

The rest were not as impressed.

"Emil, can you please explain why two strangers are in the house? And where's A2?" 2B demanded.

"You know, they look familiar. Did I work with them in the past?" Hatchet wondered. He was slapped upside the head by Jaqueline.

"They're the Trash Twins from camp. Remember, the two who would bring in old tech from various places and fix it? Though it's rare to see them outside the camp," the renamed gynoid reminded. She then turned to the pair who were still clutching Emil. "You rarely leave unless you're going dumpster diving. Why are you two here?"

"We're here for Emil," Devolva declared, shooting a glare at Jaqueline for the nickname.

"Why, though?" 2B demanded.

"We missed him. Is it wrong to want to see a friend after so long?" she demanded haughtily.

"And I've been trying to tell you two, I don't know who you are!" Emil protested. Popola turned sad, puppy dog eyes onto the skull-bot.

"Y-you mean you weren't kidding?"

"No! Why would I joke about not having my memories?" Emil shouted.

"What happened to you, Emil?" Popola whispered, seemingly ignoring his words as she stroked the side of his skull-like head. "Where did you go? Why didn't you come back to us afterwards…"

Emil sighed. "Look, miss, I'm not really Emil. I'm just one of millions of copies he made."

The two stared and him, and their moment of shock allowed the strange entity to break out of their grasps and sit up.

"I don't remember much. I recall… things, occasionally. Sadness. Longing. An explosion. I remember wandering, alone. I recall strange lights fall from the sky, disgorging endless tides of metal."

A haunted aura settled on Emil's head. "I watched them attack the… the people. I think they were people? I saw it, though. And I grew angry. So I made more. I fought. I fought. I fought. I made more of me, so I could contain the growing numbers of Machines. And… I remember people taking up arms to stand beside me as more and more of me were cut down. I fought. And… I died again."

Silence hung in the air.

"Ugg! Ugg sad!" Everyone looked up as A2 walked in, Alexander held close in her arms. The toddler's arms were reaching out towards Emil. He had sensed the sadness and wanted to give his Ugg Unca a hug.

The twin's eyes widened as they stared at the child, Emil's problems momentarily forgotten as they beheld what should have been impossible.

"No, it can't be," Devolva muttered, rising to her feet in a daze. She took a tentative step forward, only to freeze as weapons materialized in flashes of light and were pointed at her and her sister.

"Devolva, step back," Popola hissed. Slowly, the curly haired android returned to her original spot.

A2 stared at them hard. "Who are you? You're not ordinary androids, are you?"

"What makes you say that?" Devolva asked snidely.

"Well, for one, you were far stronger than any Resistance model I've ever seen in action," 9S noted, speaking up as she examined the two. "You're not YoRHa, though. And there's the fact you seem fine after helping me take on the Tower. No, more than fine."

The twins exchanged looks. "Answers for answers?" Popola suggested after a moment of silent conversation.

"Fine," A2 said, holding Alexander close. The baby was now staring at the two new pretty ladies in front of him. Were they new friends?

"I'll go first, then. What happened to you two when the Tower fell?" 9S inquired.

"We escaped. Repairs were necessary. On the way out, we also set up several defensive firewalls. The Red Girls will never be a threat again," Popola said.

More silence.

"Is, is that a human?" Popola asked hesitantly. Scared. Afraid. Longing. Hopefully. Guilty.

"Yes," A2 said softly. "The last human."

'How?' Popola wanted to know. She swallowed her question, though, and waited for her next query.

"What were the Replicants?" 9S asked, his voice quiet.

"Repla-whats?" Hatchet asked, confused.

"Replicants. The first android models. Or, at least, that's what the records claim," Jaqueline stated. "They were discontinued after the aliens invaded, however, replaced with the Resistance models, and then later the YoRHa ones."

"That's only partially correct," Popola said. "While they were androids, Replicants were actually artificial bodies created to house the consciousness of the humans who were part of Project Gestalt."

She cleared her throat. "How did a human survive?"

This time Emil spoke. "A Cryogenic facility, heavily laden with magic. It infused the machinery and the baby. He's human, but capable of wielding magic without ill side effects."

"What the hell was Project Gestalt?" 2B demanded, eyes narrowed at the twins. "I've seen snippets of data about it. Fragmentary records about an experiment to save humanity. What was it?"

"Project Gestalt was the last-ditch effort to preserve mankind from White Chlorination Syndrome," Popola said softly. "It digitalized the minds and souls of the few remaining humans, and stored them in an effort to wait out the end of the world. My sister and I were created as administrators for this project. We were supposed to ensure that when it came time for the humans to repopulate the planet, they could. The Replicants were part of this. The minds of humans were put into android bodies so they could maintain a certain level of society. But it failed."

Popola looked down, unable to continue, and Devolva spoke up. "The project failed because it did not take into account one thing; Mind and Soul are intertwined. You cannot separate the two! When the minds were given to the Replicants, but not the souls, a disconnect was created. Slowly, but surely, the Replicants began to diverge from their original source. It wasn't immediate. Tiny actions. Little thoughts. Different choices made to survive in a harsher world. And then the Black Scrawl appeared."

Devolva spat angrily. "It was inevitable, really. The Replicants began to grow souls of their own. Strange, pale imitations based on copied data and memories, but souls nonetheless. Souls that were, now, separate and different from the original human souls Project Gestalt had saved. They weren't human. Not really. They were copies of copies, altered and new. The Black Scrawl was an unexpected and unplanned side effect of the Project that tried and forced the newly born souls out of the Replicants and install the originals. The old and the new were fighting each other, unable to allow either to win because they had become jumbled and confused. The minds had become integrated with the new souls they had created, and the Replicants unknowingly resisted becoming part of their existences."

"Yonah!" Emil suddenly cried, before clutching his head. The twins looked over in worry.

"I-it's fine. I-I remember, now," Emil muttered. "Yonah… she was his daughter… afflicted by the Black Scrawl. He tried to save her… and in doing so, destroyed the project…"

"Yes, that's correct," Devolva said sadly. "Everything ended. Humanity was destroyed not by itself, but by a fake copy. There was a man. His name was Nier, though many lost their memory of him as a result of his actions. He loved his daughter more than anything. They were both Replicants in the area Popola and I administered. This very area, in fact, is where they lived. Yonah, sickened by the Black Scrawl, was going to perish. And Nier… in order to save her, he had to stop what was causing the illness."

"The Gestalt Project," 9S murmured as things began to click into place. The others might not understand exactly, but he did. "Since it was the cause of the Black Scrawl, by destroying it, he saved his daughter. But at the cost of eradicating all of the stored souls of humanity!"

The other androids all gasped in shock.

"To him, he and his daughter were humans," Popola said sadly. "They were alive. The humans stored by the project? Mere ghosts who refused to die. And, in a way, he was right. There was no chance the souls saved by the project could be reborn into new bodies. The Black Scrawl had inadvertently denied the souls access to their memories, and without memories, they, well, lacked form, function and purpose. And the souls had mutated. Becoming things known as Shades that tried to hunt down and kill the Replicants and steal their bodies in desperation."

"Memories could produce new souls. They were data, code and facts that told a human how to live. What they were. But souls were merely energy. Without the latter to give them a proper shape, it was useless to try and give them a body. We did not understand that. The Gestalt Project did not understand that. The scientists thought the soul was the most important part of the human, but they were wrong," Devola explained.

"Why couldn't they just put the humans' minds and souls into the body, not just the memories?" Hatchet asked, confused.

"For the same reason we downloaded their minds and souls in the first place; White Chlorination Syndrome," Popola said grimly. "The strange energy known known as mana was a foreign entity. Humans had never encountered it before. It created an affliction that turned humans into pillars of salt. Coming into contact with this anomalous energy was fatal, and the energy spread through no previously known methods. It went beyond merely airborne. It spread through other forms of energy. Solar, electrical, nuclear… all forms of energy became carriers for it. It was impossible to hide, at first."

"What humanity did not understand about WCS until much later was that it attacked the souls of humans. Salt Petrification was merely a side effect of the corruption. So, when they finally managed to get Project Gestalt rolling, they knew that the soul was a real thing. Which is why they placed so much importance on it. The soul featured heavily in all aspects of every human religion. It was why they thought they needed that more than the memories, and why also they could not transfer the soul to a machine body because the WCS would attack it. Only biomechanical constructs like androids were immune. And even the it took many, many tries to do so," Devolva revealed.

"By the time White Chlorination Syndrome faded from the planet, the Replicants had already developed new souls. Souls which were immune to the WCS. Souls which worked with it! But that meant humanity was effectively extinct, since the bodies that were to be their souls' new homes, the Replicants, had diverged. They had mutated. Changed. The Replicants had gone beyond merely biomechanical and had integrated magic to the point that they were almost biologically humans themselves! The machinery that made them was slowly being assimilated by the magic into organic material! The trapped souls of the original humans were trying to escape their confinement, driven mad by the lack of sensory input as well as their memories. But the souls were being infected by magic, transforming into shadowy monsters! Drawn to their corresponding Replicants, it was the Shades of mankind against their successors! It was madness!" Devolva cried.

Jaqueline gasped and staggered back. She hit the wall with a thump. Everyone turned to her.

"Sorry, sorry, it's just… androids becoming human?"

"Yes, it was strange. Some of the Admins terminated Black Scrawl victims as soon as they appeared, hoping to reset the Replicants. That did not work. Other Admins attempted to cure the Black Scrawl using medicine and magic. Again, it failed," Devolva said with a shake of her head.

"And then it all ended," Popola said sadly. "It went too far. Nier destroyed the sealed souls of humanity which had been the cause of the insanity. But the Gestalt Project had the last laugh. It forcefully infected all remaining Replicants with Black Scrawl, severing their newly born souls from their bodies. Bodies which were now more organic matter than machine."

"Some of the Replicants survived, though they were drastically changed," the straight-haired twin continued after a painful pause. "As well as many of the maintenance androids who were designed to merely be, to quote the scientists who made them, 'NPC's.' Merely extras and background characters so the real humans wouldn't feel isolated and alone, since there were only a couple thousand humans by the time the project digitized them, and that the bits of technology which remained could be restored and kept working. Those androids became the first of the Resistance, and it is these androids who encountered the aliens when they invaded."

"How does Emil fit into all of this?" Sebastian asked. The twins shared a glance. They turned to the skull-boy, who nodded at them. They offered weak smiles and answered.

"Emil was a human, once." At that, more gasps rose up. "One of seven, in fact. There were children who were somehow immune to WCS, and were collected and experimented on, in hopes of creating humans who could replace the old, not immune ones. But there were too few of them for a viable genetic divergence in any future populations, unfortunately, so humans made them into weapons of sorts. Tools that could control the WCS and use it to tame the lands which had become wild and infested with mutated animals and other threats. The experiments failed, however, and only Emil remained with his sanity intact. The others…"

Popola trailed off, shaking her head sadly.

"Anyways, we knew Emil back when he lived here. In this very mansion, in fact," Devolva said, picking up where her sister left off. "We knew him, and Nier. Yonah, Kaine… we knew the ones who eventually destroyed the project and ended humanity."

"We tried to stop them, you know?" the curly-haired gynoid said sadly. "But… we loved them. Cared for them. We couldn't bring ourselves to actually hurt them despite the fact they might be the end of mankind. It was that which caused… everything."

"That's why the other androids hate you," Hatchet hissed. "I always thought it was strange. Whenever I saw you, I felt… angry! But couldn't explain it. And this is why! We were being programmed to hate you for allowing mankind to go extinct!"

"Yes, that is the truth," Popola said, eyes downcast. "We tried to make up for it. We made the Bunker and the Lunar Depot and the Server as monuments to humanity, but it wasn't enough. The other Admins… couldn't take it. They died. One after the other. Only myself and my sister remain. The last Admins of Project Gestalt. And with the aliens…"

"The First and Second Machine Wars were fought almost exclusively by Emil and his copies," Devolva said, putting an arm around her sister. "He avoided us, never really having forgiven us for our actions. Then, we joined in the Third and Fourth Machine Wars using androids to fight alongside Emil, and we drove the aliens to a stalemate. It was the Fifth War, though, that made Popola and I think Emil was completely gone."

"It was the Kansai Offensive," Popola recalled, thinking back to those far off days. "We had just retaken Hong Kong and the mainland Chinese Munitions Factories back from the Machines. Our Pacific Fleets were assembled, the androids ready for battle, prepared to strike out at the last Machine bastion in Asia. As long as they controlled Japan, they'd be a thorn in our sides and could eventually try to retake China, Taiwan, Korea, and Vietnam, which we had been fighting to reclaim."

"Popola and I were acting as Shadow Generals. Directing the androids from behind the scenes, since they were all programmed to despise us and would not obey commands from us," Devolva said with a wistful smile as she remembered the blood and battles of the past. "Emil was with us, as well. He was down to a few dozen clones. Producing more was… difficult. Creating one clone could instead be used for six entire androids, or four androids with a full compliment of combat gear. It was a hard choice, but he had long ago stopped making new copies of himself, instead focusing on improving the skills of the remainder."

"We pushed in. Made it all the way to Tokyo before the Machine pushed back in full. Did you know that WCS started in Tokyo?" Popola revealed. "Anyways, it was going well for a while. But suddenly, there was a report from the rear! Machines had launched a desperate strike against our holdings in Europe while we were focused in Asia! Devolva and I had to make the choice to pull back to defend Europe, or hold here."

"…I told you to go back." Everyone turned to Emil in surprise. He was staring at the twins. "I told you that if Europe falls we'd lose access to the Northern Atlantic, and the Machines would pour out from their bases and factories in Russia and we'd never be able to dislodge them after that. I told you to leave."

"And I, I stood alone. As the androids retreated, I called together the last of my copies, and we made a final strike at the Machine's Mothership which was leading the attack. I, I attacked. I won. But…"

Emil paused and clutched his head. "I had to self-destruct again! I had to leave my friends behind again! Again! Again! Again I threw away my life!"

"But one of me survived. A copy I had stashed in Europe to keep an eye on the Machines there. It-it flatlined, though. I'd tried to upload myself into that copy before I detonated. The aliens… no, it wasn't them! It was the Red Girls! I remember! I saw them! They were just starting to manifest, but they saw me! They Hijacked my signal! It wasn't me! It was them! We-I-They!"

Emil cried out as sparks of mana exploded from his body, accompanied by smoke.

"I fought them I fought them I fought them I fought them bitter bitter bitter pain pain pain why why why did I win did I win did I win no point no point lost it all lost it all SEBASTIAN KAINE YONAH NIER WHY DID YOU DIE I COULDN'T SAVE YOU WHY WHY WHY?!"

Emil let out a scream of pain, and magic flooded the room. Glass shattered, plaster cracked, steel bent and leather decayed. The androids were pushed back by a wall of pulsating purple energy that slammed into them.

A2 covered up Alexander to protect him, and the young boy began to cry as the magic in the room reacted with his own. Slowly, the tempest of energy was pushed back, a white pulse that fought off Emil's dark purple power.

For a few seconds it seemed that neither force would win. Then, there was a crack. One of the wooden toy blocks at Emil's feet shattered, sending splinters flying into his skeletal face.

Startled, he recoiled, and lost focus for a second. That was all the time Alexander's magic needed, though, and the purple energy was smashed aside and devoured by the searing white light. A blinding flash filled the room, coupled with a keening wail that sounded like three voices. Two female, one male. All young. All familiar. Emil's, mixed with those of the Red Girls.

As the light faded, everyone looked around at the ruins of the living room. Emil lay in the center, the floorboards cracked and shattered. He lay in a shallow crater that smoked gently.

"Emil?! Emil, are you alright?!" Devolva cried, scrambling up over to him, Popola hot on her heels.

"Is he alright?" 9S asked, coughing slightly as he sat up with 2B's assistance.

"I-I think he is," Popola said hesitantly as she looked the skull-bot's body over. "I don't see any damage…"

Suddenly, Emil sat upright, startling everyone.

"AH! Geez, don't do that!" Jaqueline complained, gasping slightly. "You're like one of those freaky jack-in-the-boxes!"

"I'm back," Emil said, looking around. He let out a cheer! "I did it! I managed to win with Alex's help!"

"What happened just now?" Hatchet demanded.

"I destroyed the Red Girls," Emil said grimly, causing everyone to look at him in shock.

"It happened when I tried to send myself to one of my copies. The alien Mothership sensed my transmission, and despite it being energy based and not code, they still found a way to, well, hack into me."

The skull-boy sighed. "The Red Girls… were the slowly manifesting Gestalt consciousness of the Machines. At the time, they lacked a real will and form, but when they clung to me, they… evolved would be the best word."

He looked at 2B and 9S with an air of seriousness. "Did either of you ever find it strange that despite building my homes underground, I never saw or mentioned the Tower, which had seemingly been built beneath the ground?"

The two ex-YoRHa androids exchanged glances. Now that he mentioned it…

"I was corrupted by them! For centuries I was being used as their puppet! I was the one who built the Tower for them!" Emil cried out in despair. "Oh, there were times I was able to escape their control. Rare moments of lucidity. I tried to bury them in my memories, hoping they'd become faulty and fragmented like myself. But it was too late. They'd already downloaded into the Tower. And then… I lost control. I have no idea how long I was lost in my mind, fighting them. But then you two saved me! 2B, 9S, when you fought those machines, you jolted me out of the loop I'd been trapped in! I finally was able to seal the Red Girl fragments in me away! But they were still there. Until now!"

"Popola and Devolva's story made me remember! They made me recall what happened back then! And the two tried to escape once more! I tried to shut them out, but they took control of my magic!" Emil grinned at Alex. "If our resident magical baby hadn't used his own magic accidentally, the Red Girls might have been reborn! But they're gone, now! Burned away by Alexander's magic!"

"How?" A2 demanded, holding her precious child close.

"Magic! It's an unnatural energy source that corrupts and overrides other forms of energy! And when the Red Girls took over my magic, they were exposed to Alexander's full force blast of opposing energy! They were, at that moment, pure energy instead of merely code. As such, Alex could over write them with his own essence! I control ambient power in the area and other subjects. But Alex here is able to do that and more! He's a pure human, completely integrated with WCS! Who knows what he can actually do?"

"Are we sure they're deleted, and not just shoved elsewhere?" Jaqueline asked, worried. At that, Emil seemed to frown.

"I don't know. They're gone from me. That's all I know. I can't detect them anywhere nearby, either."

"We'll have to keep an eye out for anomalies in the future," A2 said firmly. "They cannot be allowed to return."

"What about us?" Everyone turned to Popola, still on her knees next to Emil's crater. "What will you do with us, now that you know the truth about what really happened to humanity?"

"Please, let us stay here!" Devolva begged, standing up. "If Alexander is really the last human, we, we need this. We need to serve him. To protect him! We don't want to fail anymore!"

A2 stared at them long and hard. Then, she looked down at Alexander, who'd fallen asleep in her arms from the unexpected massive exertion of magical energy.

"Alexander is everything to me. He is my world." She looked up, a sharp glint in her eyes. "If you hurt him, I will kill you."

The twins sagged with relief even as the others turned questioning eyes towards the A-type.

"We need more allies. More companions. The Resistance will be a good start. These two can come and go as need be, more easily than Jaqueline or Hatchet can, as well. They'll have less scrutiny, too. And, perhaps, we can bring Anemone into the fold."

"Are you sure?" Jaqueline inquired nervously. "I mean, I think that's a good idea. She's already suspicious of me, so if she can work with us, it can make it easier for everyone. And she can keep YoRHa off our backs. But isn't this too fast?"

"Better early than late," 9S chimed in. "We should start making discreet attempts to bring allies together for protecting Alex. What about Pascal? He's a pacifist and is fascinated by humans."

"We'll think about that. For now, androids are the priority," A2 declared. She stared with love and care at the baby in her arms. "We won't let you down. We'll build you the world and give you a place you can be proud to call yours."

And then, with a smirk, "Glory to mankind."

Everyone in the room snapped off a snarky, mocking salute in response to her words. "Glory to mankind!"