A2 waited, she waited hours and hours in the hideout, all this time reading and re-reading the two wanted posters, the more she did, the less she could make sense of them.
Finally, the sound of heels on concrete reached her ears. She knew those kinds of steps, the light steps of an experienced killer. She doubted she would have heard her if it wasn't for YoRHa's enhanced hearing.
It was exactly how the Executioner Number 26 walked.
About time she showed up.
Robin looked with much surprise at A2's presence in the room, she must have got here after she left. She was just about to tell her she was happy to see her again, but the way the other android looked at her made her hesitate.
It was the harshest glare she had ever seen on someone's face, and it was directed at her.
"Is there something wrong?" she dared to ask.
Robin learned from last time that she had to be the one initiating conversations, if she wanted to get something out from A2.
She followed the woman's gaze to the table where something was lying, eyes widening under the blindfold at the realization.
She had left the posters out! She'd been too wrapped up in old memories that had surfaced because of White's actions, that she had forgotten to hide the two away when she left the facility.
And now A2 found them…
She was in quite the trouble now.
A2 took her poster and shoved it in her face. "What's the meaning of this?" she growled, not even bothering to hide her annoyance.
"Why do you look like this kid? Why is the story you told me similar to this one? Why the hell do you call yourself by her name?"
Question after question came, and all more legit than the previous.
"Who the hell are you?"
That would be hard to explain, she did plan to tell A2 the truth, she just didn't think she'd find out before time, and not in this way either.
"Have you been lying to me this whole time to get me to trust you?"
Robin sighed. "A2, listen, I can explain all of this, but I can't guarantee any of it will make any sense to you."
She still doubted this was real at times too.
"What is that supposed to mean?" A2 glared harder, and Robin could tell her patience was running out, if it wasn't already gone.
"It means exactly what I said. I can tell you the full story, but it is hard to believe, just know that I have not been lying to you, I'll swear this to anything you want." she explained, placing a hand to her chest.
"The story I told you when I first took you here was not a lie, what was a made up excuse, was that it was those false memories you mentioned. I do not know what false memories are, but you did serve me a way to make you believe me for the time being, until I managed to find a way to tell the truth."
"You are still not making any sense." A2 crossed her arms. "Were those memories true or not?"
Robin nodded. "Yes, they are true, and there's so much more I haven't told you."
"Then do so, because I am damn sick of you turning words around and being cryptic." it made her look even more stupid, though A2 didn't voice the thought out loud.
Either she'd been made too dumb to understand, or the other android was too smart for this world.
"Fine then." Robin took a moment to breathe, she was feeling more nervous than ever, not knowing how A2 could react to the news.
"I… I was a human."
A2's expression changed every few seconds, she was angry, yet confused, shocked even. Was this woman even telling the truth at all?
"But there aren't humans on Earth… they're on the Moon." she could not wrap her head around this.
A human turned android? How did this happen? Why did this happen? When?
"What if I am not from Earth? Nor the Moon?" she asks, adding even more confusion in A2's head.
"I assume you have been on the Bunker before, right?"
A2 scoffed. "Of course. Where else would I have been made?"
But Robin just nodded back. "Have you looked around in space? From the Bunker you can see Earth, the Moon, and another planet."
A2 closed her eyes, scanning into her old memories of when she'd been freshly rolled out, trying to ignore the pang in her chest as she recalled the faces of the people she loved.
But yes, she used to stare in space quite often, and there was this big blue other planet further away from Earth, that White always told them not to concern themselves with.
"I remember something, yes…" she whispered.
"A planet that is pretty much all ocean, divided in two by a big mountain, and with a lot of islands?" A2 nodded at her.
Robin took the opportunity to walk closer, stepping next to her to take her mother's poster in her hands. "My island's name was Ohara, home of archeology and history, it had the biggest library in the world, inside a giant tree, the Tree of Knowledge."
"My mother…she too was an archeologist. She left the island, leaving me alone with my aunt and uncle when I was two years old. My aunt hated me, my cousin Mizuira was exactly the same, and anything I'd do she'd tell her mother, so she'd punish me, and my uncle? He didn't care to intervene." she gave a small shrug, but A2 knew it didn't mean that what she said didn't hurt.
"They'd make me do chores and house jobs that a young child should not have cared about, I was not even allowed to eat at their table, nor to have anything more than just some bread. I was barely even allowed outside, but when I did, I'd always go to the tree, the archeologists took me in and I was allowed to read and study as much as I wanted to. When I turned eight I graduated, and became an archeologist too, hoping that when my mother returned she'd take me away from the rest of my family, and that I could stay with her."
A2 stayed silent, after all, what did she know about having a family? She had friends she had cared for with all her might, but she'd never been born like a human did, didn't know what it meant to have a mother or anything of sorts.
"She did return, but… that day was it."
The white haired android watched as Robin placed the wanted poster in her hands back where she'd left it before, and the way her hands clenched in fists she could tell why.
"In my world, there is something called the 100 years of void, where no one knows what happened in history. However there are these ancient stones scattered everywhere, Poneglyphs they're called, and the archeologists of my island were studying one."
A2 waited, but she doubted that whatever more she'd say would sound good.
"Studying those stones is forbidden, and the World Government found out, they issued the order of a Buster Call on the island. The Buster Call is an all out attack of ten marine warships and their orders are to attack until nothing of said island remains."
Images of her island in flames all around her appeared before Robin's vision. She put a hand over her eyes, crumpling the visor in the process. Her whole body shook at the memory, legs giving out she found herself on her knees.
A2 kneeled next to her, not quite touching the woman, but staying close enough to let her know she was there. This had been an even more violent reaction than the first time she told her this, and she was unsure how to react, or if she was supposed to do something to try and help.
She'd spent long enough with her own traumas to know that having someone close would help, at least, it had been something she had desired to have. To have a friendly shoulder to cry on…
She was just about to tell Robin to stop talking if it got too painful, because she was sure these reactions had to be all but a lie, they were too strong to be, but the other woman kept talking still.
"I could barely see my mother again that day, before she had me escape with the help of her friend, who was also my friend. I was… the only survivor."
This hit too close to home for A2 too, wasn't she just the same after all? Sole survivor of something she was not supposed to live through?
"The World Government put that bounty on me after they found out, in reality such a large amount would have been only because I am also able to read those forbidden stones, but to justify it to the average person they put the fact I sunk six warships. That had been my friend's doing, he just did it to protect me…"
A2 assumed those ships had to be big to have enough firepower to destroy a whole island, how strong had her friend been then?
She watched Robin remove the hand from her face, hoping she recovered a little.
"I tried to offer my services to people, to help them, so they'd give me shelter and food in exchange, but all they wanted was just the money on my head. Quickly enough, I found out that nobody cared how young I was, I couldn't trust anyone else but myself, so I ran, I hid, and I used people to get what I needed to survive, and then back again and again."
The black haired woman turned so her back was against the table and she was sitting against it, one leg propped up and arm leaning on it. A2 did the same, choosing to hug her knees instead. They were facing one another again.
"I learned to get what I needed through others, or I'd steal it from someone, and soon enough, when danger became a matter of life and death… I learned to kill."
And A2 knew she did it well, but now she also knew why, it was all experience, but an experience a child as young as her should have never been part of.
"I spent almost twenty years like this, fighting to survive, to fight hunger, to not have a place to sleep, to have nothing to keep myself warm at night, against the rain, or even snow, to have to be careful of anything that could have hurt me, or anyone. I was just me against the world, until everything became too much…"
She sighed, not really coming to terms with the fact that she had died, even if it had been years.
"I thought I died, but then I woke up on the Bunker." Robin held out her arms. "My body, it looked similar, but it wasn't the same, it was no longer made of flesh and blood, but metal and wires. It didn't feel mine, but I could move it around, I could use it… I have no idea how YoRHa did this, or why, but… here I am…" she shrugged. "And in front of me, stood White."
A2 growled at the mention of the Commander. Dragging a human into this madness was too much, even for her.
"I shamelessly bowed my head to her, and obeyed her commands through all these years. It might sound weird but… YoRHa has given me something I longed for since I was a kid, that being affection. There are soldiers that look up to me, and for me, I have a place to stay and to return…" she sighed. "During the years I stopped questioning myself if what I was doing was right, all of this out of selfishness, to not have to return to being alone again…"
And A2 could not blame her. Even if not for as long as she had, she had known loneliness, and what it meant to not have anyone at your side. She wouldn't know what she'd do if she ever ended up in a similar situation, if she'd want to go back being alone. Probably not.
"That was… until I met you."
"Me?" A2 pointed at herself, it had been the first word she said since Robin started telling her story. It felt wrong to interrupt though.
The black haired woman only nodded. "The people I killed so far were all still devoted to YoRHa's cause, but you, you're different. I may not know your story, but you too are a survivor, like me, and that's why I refused to kill you."
"A2, I murdered a lot of people in my life of human and android, for different reasons, you reminded me I was once something more than just a mindless killer."
Robin stared at the white haired android directly in the eye, and she knew A2 could tell.
"Because by doing so I would have rejected what little of humanity is left in me. "
"I reminded you of your own self." A2 commented, and at Robin's nod she knew she got that right.
All this information was a lot to take in, but A2 felt like she understood this woman's pain as if it had been her own. Too many things in her story, true or not, were the same as her own. And try all she might, she didn't find it in herself to reject her, and plainly call her a liar, even for as absurd as this whole thing sounded.
And she was sure that if it was the truth, it would have been even more absurd for the Executioner to live through.
No, what a human had to live through.
"I have told you all I had, now it is up to you if you wish to believe me or not. I can't show any other evidence but those two posters you saw."
Did A2 want to believe her? She was sure she'd always be convinced that part of her would never believe her entirely, but still… it was too much of a detailed story to make it up based on two posters.
Besides, hadn't she shown that she was genuinely interested in artifacts before? Right after she took her here?
"Well… this is certainly quite something…"
Why not tell her what little she knew too after all? Robin had shown she could keep secrets.
"Part of me is still convinced this is some kind of trap, I can't help it, but… us YoRHa were always told to never concern ourselves with anything else but reclaiming Earth, for the humans that are waiting on the Moon. We know nothing about other planets, and, if aliens exist and come from somewhere else, then why can't humans?" she frowned.
"If it makes sense."
"As far as I know, White has never told anyone of what I am, about where I come from or anything, with the only exception of the woman who guides me as my Operator. So to me it sounds like everyone is being kept ignorant on purpose." Robin reasoned.
And it made sense with the way YoRHas acted whenever they found something forbidden to them. She too had much she wanted to know, and wasn't allowed to. She too had to bow her head and obey, or White would remind much too gladly of her place.
This was all starting to sound like a massive pile of lies to hide something, using her and other E types as weapons.
You can always run, just like you've always done, Robin. You're good at it.
Where was she supposed to go though? Just hide in the facility for the rest of her days for however long an android lived? And just abandon 21O and the others to their fate?
She had sworn she would hurt them…
"I wouldn't put it past White to do such a thing. I met way too many Executioners time and time again that didn't remember anything of what I said, nor me. Eventually I just stopped trying to prove them my innocence." A2 said with a snarl.
Not to mention what the Commander had done before she even started sending people to kill her. To her and her old squadron, sacrificed like mere items for what? For androids without a shred of willpower.
So much for making better ones than her, but at least she could still think with her own head.
"I may not know your past, but I knew deep down you'd be just like me. A victim of events caused by someone else." Robin sighed.
"People used to repeat to me all the time how I should not have been allowed to live, how I should not have survived the Buster Call, they told me so many times that I started believing it."
"Guilt eats you alive if you allow it to, you often forget that the events that happened were not because of you. But you can't help but feel responsible, because you keep living while the people you loved are no longer with you." A2 finished for her, and once again it proved just how much alike they were.
Robin just nodded, understanding well what she meant. Her family might have been evil to her, but she still had people she lost too.
She often wondered what her mother, Saul, and the archeologists would think if they saw her now. She did not have an answer for it.
"You know… I'm glad I made this decision. Whatever consequences will it bring, I will accept them." Robin looked at A2's eyes. "I'm glad I could talk to you about all of this."
A2 only looked back, a small frown on her face. "I knew you were different the moment our swords met, but… there's one last thing I want to see about you."
And Robin knew what she meant, in all of this heartfelt conversation, she was still wearing something that was out of place, her YoRHa visor.
She reached behind her head to undo the knot that tied it around her head, but a hand clad in black carbon stopped her, so, lowering her own hands and her head for better access, full conscious of the height difference even if they were sitting, she let A2 untie that horrible blindfold.
She now knew the meaning of it…
Once the cloth fell away from her eyes, Robin blinked a couple of times, letting her optics adjust to the dark of the room, and then looked back at A2, who was eagerly waiting.
Two eyes stared back at the white haired android, beautiful and different. But they were what she had seen from the posters.
The right eye, blue with a hint of green in it, like the sky and the sea united in one, and the left one, brown and dark, like the soil of Earth.
A2 was sure she had never seen a brown eye before, the androids of YoRHa had blue eyes, and the Resistance had green ones, probably to not risk having them look like the red of a logic virus or machine eyes.
A hand of hers rested on Robin's cheek, and she put her own gloves one over it, encouraging A2 to keep it there.
"Don't ever cover your eyes again."