The engine of a vehicle halting, the click of a key turning, and the slam of a door. These were the sounds that Guard heard while regaining consciousness, the world was still pitch black and attempting to move one limb felt like a herculean task. It was difficult trying to remember what had happen but bits of memories started forming together, they were kidnapped. Guard's eyes opened wide and took in the surrounding, it was too dark to see and movement was still difficult so trying to escape was next to impossible.

"So aeternilite, right?"

An unknown voice causes Guard's eyes to focus to the source of it. It seems like it came from the side of the pickup truck that Guard was in, Wait a minute I'm in the back of a pickup truck Guard thought.

"What about it?"

A second unknown voice, this one had a slight accent but Guard couldn't place where it came from.

"How would you say it?" The first voice questioned.

"Uh, eh-terni-lite."

"Yeah, yes! That's how I say it too! But guess this, right? Do you know how they pronounce it in the United Countries?"

"No clue, how?"

"Ee-terni-lite."

"What the hell, no way man." The second voice says in disbelief.

"Yeah it's weird. Like in the US, everyone says eh-terni-lite cause, I mean, it's spelled aeternilite. Why would you put so much more emphasis on the e? I mean, some of them used to be former Canadians, you'd think they would love saying eh every chance they get."

"I know what you mean man... how about other countries? How would they pronounce it?"

"Don't know, but it's going to keep me up all night..."

Guard overheard the conversation and was interested in finding the answer. It was true that people in the US use eh over ee, but a few prisoners have used ee so the eh being an American thing isn't all encompassing. This resource was the reason that the US sent them to Former North Dakota to secure, Guard might as well collect all the neat tidbits about it.

"You think we should check on the android? Did you remember to tie her up?" The voice with the strange accent said.

"Couldn't hurt to check and, yeah, I did tie her up."

The sounds of footsteps could be heard coming closer as one of the kidnappers approached the truck. They leaned over the back of the truck and met Guard's gaze.

"Uhhhhhh... she's awake... also I forgot to tie her..."

The second kidnapper rushed up to the truck and also took a look at Guard.

"Yep. You really screwed up there man."

"Uh, hey!" Guard spoke up, the two kidnappers nonchalantly looked at each other and back to Guard.

"Sup"

"Hi"

There was a few seconds of awkward silence as they continued to stare at each other. One of them noticed that Guard's limbs were stuck in an unnatural position.

"Is it fashionable with androids to lie down like that or are you going to move, cause that looks uncomfortable."

Guard's limbs were still not operational, they could barely do a twitch.

"I-I can't quite move my arms and legs right now... don't worry about it, I don't mind it."

"Oh we don't mind moving you if it's causing you some problems, oh, I'm Richard by the way." His face was covered with a black mask and some protective gear but it was still nice to have a name, this man was the first voice that Guard heard.

"Yeah, I'm Cid. Hi." The second voice spoke up, he was also wearing similar looking gear that obscured his face. Cid was a bit shorter than Richard, which helped Guard tell the two apart.

"I'm Guard and I'm fine. You don't have to go out of your way to do that." Guard replied.

"Well if it's fine with you. Wouldn't want to get touchy with a lady without her permission." Richard laughed.

"I'm a male."

"Wait wait wait hold on... you're a guy? Like a guy guy?" Richard said with a shocked tone, Guard nodded. "Like, no kidding..."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"That's unexpected." Cid replied as he looked at Richard.

"Aww man, I was thinking that you look kinda cute..." Richard held one hand on his forehead to express his surprise.

"Hey, nothing wrong with calling a dude cute, man." Cid put a hand on his fellow comrade's shoulder to comfort him.

"You know, it just... makes me feel weird."

"I wouldn't think of you any differently if you were into dudes, love's in all kinds of places."

"Yeah, thanks Cid, I appreciate that."

Guard thought it was some sort of in-joke with his fellow soldiers to refer to him as a girl and he played along, but now that a group of strangers started calling him a girl he started questioning the way people saw him. Now that he thinks about it, there were people who mistakenly thought he was a girl in his previous occupation. How many times now has he played it off as a joke and never corrected them?

"Huh, I do get mistaken for a girl a lot." He muttered to himself.

"Sorry... about earlier, didn't mean to make a big deal about it... you're still cute." Richard gave Guard a thumbs up.

"Thanks."

"Anyways, we were gonna question you but the others are currently out." Cid mentioned, Guard remembered that there were more than two intruders, he didn't get the exact numbers but he definitely counted five.

"You messed up Fred real bad. Oh, he was the guy that shot you with a shotgun." Richard did a little shotgun pumping motion as he said that. "They went to fix him up as well as check something out which leaves us two here to watch over you."

"Sorry about that." Guard apologized to the two.

"No need, man." Cid waved off the apology. "Fred's kinda a dick so I'm glad someone took him down a few notches."

"Not to mention you took quite a beating yourself, that's why Guard types are a pain in the ass to deal with." Richard expressed his annoyance at having to deal with that type of android, they're durable as hell and make it really difficult to infiltrate especially when they work in groups of three or more.

"You heard they're rolling out new Guard types?" Cid looked at both Guard and Richard to see their reaction to the news. Guard seemed like the more surprised of the two though it didn't help that Richard was wearing a mask.

"Really?" While most androids don't pay much attention to their production, Guard kept a close eye on his since he likes to be up-to-date on things and this was the first he heard about it.

"Ya man, they're like total upgrades, heard they're using the new Golem System developed all the way in Australia." Cid explained to the two.

"No kidding... what are they going to call them? Guard-2?" Richard chuckled.

"Nooo, what? That's going to make the unit names more confusing, like Guard-2-10. They're probably going to give them a completely different type name since they're basically not the same anymore, maybe Defender or something." Cid was correct. When an android type gets upgraded they tend to keep the same type designation if the adjustments aren't that big of a deal, but if it changes the functionality or allows the android to do something completely new than they would be given a new type name.

"They're going to run out of names eventually." Richard scoffed. "I don't want to end up with lame sounding names in the future, we gotta future-proof them."

"There's a lot of words in the English dictionary, personally, I think Vanguard sounds cool." Guard said as he rested his arms on the panel of the truck.

"Oh! It has guard in it and since it's an upgrade you add that and... oh you're a genius!" Cid was giddy with excitement at that name that he almost didn't notice that Guard's limbs were working. "Hey, you can move now."

"Hey! I can!" Guard hadn't noticed until Cid mentioned it, he moved his arms back and forth. "So what happens now?" Guard asked after he finished testing it out.

The two looked at each other and shrugged.

"Nothing, I guess... we still have to wait until the others get back." Richard answered.

Guard wasn't armed and he wasn't in the mood to fight his kidnappers since they seem nice, which left Guard with no other option but to wait for something to happen. Whether it's the others returning or Guard's fellow soldiers barging in to rescue him, it was up to chance to decide what happens next.

Guard lay back down on the bed of the truck while the other two continued their discussions. He was currently a hostage and had no clue on what the kidnappers actually want. He hadn't thought about it till now. Were they on the UCNA side or at least working with them, or could they be an entirely different group involved in this conflict. But soon that took a backseat to what Guard felt was more truly important, how much of a mess did they make at the base? He took a while to clean all of it, in fact, he didn't even manage to finish cleaning the whole thing before he was interrupted by them. Thinking about it wasn't enough to anger Guard but it did agitate him a little.

"No way, man, Emma's too out of your league." Guard overheard Cid say.

"What? C'mon she laughs at my jokes!" Richard replied, he felt offended.

"She laughs at my jokes, she laughs at everyone's jokes. The reason you noticed her only laughing at your jokes is because the boss man and Fred barely makes jokes."

"Boss man?" Guard said out-loud which caught the attention of the two.

"He's the leader of our team, we just call him that cause it annoys him. He's the one that shot you a couple of times to knock you out." Richard made a dual pistol shooting motion with his hands.

"Oh."

"They left a while ago so they should be back soon." Cid looked out at the surroundings, it was night-time, Guard's internal clock told him that it has only been a couple of hours since he was taken hostage. Guard didn't pay close attention to where they were but with a closer inspection it seems like they were parked in a forest, running water could be heard nearby. The only river in area that Guard knew about was the Missouri River, which they had to cross in order to get to the UCNA base, it didn't give them any trouble as they had a bridge that they could drive across. If that was true, then Guard was a long way from the base and the chance of his teammates finding him dwindled but that didn't deter Guard from believing in them.

"Oh yeah, before I forget, the boss man said something about threatening to shoot you with our guns if you decide to escape." Cid casually mentioned. "So I guess this is a good time as any to threaten you a bit, but don't worry we're not going to rough you up."

"If you decide to run we have to shoot you, which sucks, for us and you." Richard unholstered his pistol and started wiggling it. "So don't."

"Yeah, I get you. I won't do anything unnecessary." Guard nodded.

"Now that that's out of the way... you guys wanna play card games or something? I brought a deck." Cid pulled out a pack of cards from one of his vest pockets and held it out for the others to see.

"I'm down for a game."