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.
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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.
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The moment the wall had started crumbling 2B had already been in motion, specifically she backfliped behind one of the crashed bombers, but the giant excavator arm that burst through the wall still nearly reached her before she got into cover. One of the spidertrons, the one that had crawled out of the bomber she was hiding behind, had actually gotten hit and thrown against the wall, but its surface seemed unmarred.
That was all the attention she could spare for the spidertrons though, as the massive limb came hurtling towards the bomber she was hiding behind, even if the bomber could take that hit without breaking 2B didn’t want to risk getting clipped. Dashing out from cover and towards the arm she held her sword out and started cutting through the metal as it passed her by. She could hear explosions close by, so the spidertrons were probably launching missiles at the arm itself rather than the bucket, still she had managed to cut off quite a few of the excavators buckets, making its chainsaw-like spinning significantly less effective.
Still the giant spinning excavator limb was a large problem, and she didn’t have any weapons that could quickly take it down. Hacking it apart with her sword was possible, but it was not ideal. The limb retracted from the building, giving 2B a few moments to examine her surroundings. The spidertrons and her Pod were still pouring fire into the crane's base and they were making visible progress. That meant they just had to last long enough for the limb to be disabled.
Duck and slide under the pinning arm, slash your blade along, get out from under it, dash to the side, jump up and rapidly attack, the arm pulls back, get ready to dodge, watch as missiles, lasers, and bullets pelt the buzzsaw like excavator, see it ready to attack again and get ready to dodge, it heads straight towards one of the spidertrons, dash towards its relatively safe side and start hacking away at the joints, dash back as the limb thrashes. Ready yourself for the next attack.
It was a few minutes of frantic dodging and slowly disabling the excavator's arm before the ranged weapons destroyed the thing. The spidertrons unleashing a flurry of missiles that finally punctured through the weakened armor. A fight that long was an eternity in battle, but she hadn’t gotten hit, and the spidertrons seemed equal intact, even though she distinctly remembered them getting hit on a few occasions.
2B stayed on guard though, and soon she heard a faint buzzing of propellers, she quickly got into position to leap into the air and strike whatever was coming down, or to simply leap out of the way while her pod or the spidertrons handled the aerial threat.
The distinct frame of a flight suit had 2B relaxing her guard, there was only one android left nearby with a working flight suit, and that was 9S. Her guess was confirmed when he came to a stop, hovering just before her and the spidertrons.
“That was a great fight ma’am, those new spidertrons have a bunch of fire power.”
“You’re 2B right?, My names 9S, I’m here to provide support”
2B suppressed her emotions, yet another time meeting 9S for the ‘first time’, it was almost routine at this point. With a monotone voice she spoke up, best to keep her distance for as long as possible. “Copy that”
9S smirked at her then, and her heart clinched. He always had the same facial expressions. It was like meeting the identical twin of a dead partner. “So was that buzzsaw the goliath you came to kill?” 2B wished an actual goliath was that easy to kill. “No, that's just another defense system” 9S frowns for a second, “then I guess we still have to find it, I’ll look around outside while you guys look around inside” 2B nodded and 9S took off.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The machines she encountered inside were far weaker than the excavator outside. Falling quickly to her blade or the weapons of her pod. The spidertrons handled anything that was outside her immediate range, or were simply in a poor position for her to engage. That was one issue with using missiles 2B guessed, you had to watch how many you used.
Still it wasn’t like any of the machines that managed to close with the spidertrons fared any better, they would just get speared through by a leg, or if the machine was larger the bigger leg would split apart and a sort of plasma blade would bisect the machine. And 2B doubted they would run out of lasers, they just had less range than the missiles.
They searched the factory top and bottom, periodically checking in with 9S but no one found signs of the engel class machine, it had either left when the attack was noticed, their intel had been wrong, or it was still somewhere nearby. It was a little unnerving watching the spidertrons move about, they just crawled on the walls and the ceilings like they were the floor, and when they jumped they always fell much slower than they should have, not unlike when she would float down with her pod.
2B wouldn’t be leaving until she had either found the machine or confirmed it wasn’t anywhere nearby, so she and the spidertrons left the factory and headed towards a massive bridge, supposedly one that led to another nearby factory. It was while she was looking around outside that she found one of the androids from her flight group, nearly dead on the ground.
Apparently she had been trying to desert but had failed, normally her orders were to kill such androids, but now she was just to give them over to the human. Which was the main reason she didn’t protest when one of the spidertrons picked up the infected and dying android and stored it inside itself.
She did ask if the spidertron could even keep the traitorous android alive, but they had life support and repair systems inside. Which would be impressive if it actually managed to fend off the logic virus. At least she had gotten a new weapon out of the exchange, even if it was worse than her own sword.
Their journey across the bridge was interrupted by the sound of screeching metal, and she turned around to see two of the excavator arms from before shooting down the bridge, immediately her pod and the spidertrons started unloading onto the tracks the arms were moving on, and they made one slam to a halt before it could reach the group, but the other got far closer before it was stopped.
The arms started destroying the bridge while they unloaded into the arms, and her path forward was broken, not enough that she couldn’t make the jump though, just far enough to make it difficult.
A second was spent deciding if it was even worth it to fight the giant buzz saws, but they were too much of a threat to just ignore, even immobilized as they were. They might destroy infrastructure and cause the factory to collapse, or they could just drag themselves.
No, best to destroy them and make sure they weren’t a threat.
With her plan set 2B crouched and readied herself to attack the first limb that slashed down and came into her range.
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The fight with the arms had been grueling, with two of the things there was even less space to dodge, and almost nowhere was free from the things reach or sweeping attacks, the spidertrons had a better time with it though, one had climbed under the bridge while the other had stayed on top of one of the cranes and tried peeling its armor off.
That had worked until the second crane came to punt the spidertron off of its counterpart. Then that spidertron was back with her, dodging and weaving through the sweeping attacks, either ducking under or jumping over the spinning buckets. All the while their continued attacks chipped away at the arms.
Her plan, if attack until they die and don't get hit can be called a plan, had been going well, at least until the arms had been damaged enough that their movements started to slow and jerk. Then everything started to go wrong. The arms lifted up their broken or dislodged chassis and placed them back on the tracks, and then with a burst of steam and energy they rocketed away, faster than the actual rockets chasing them.
Then the battered and broken arms came to a stop at the side of the factory, and revealed themselves to be actual arms for the massive engel they had been looking for. Cloaked in smoke and fog and belching fire from dozens of pipes.
She was in just about the worst position to fight it, it had a clear line of sight to her and she had no cover and could only run straight away or towards it.
The thing let out a massive screech and one of the spidertrons jumped in front of her. Then with a wrench that shook the earth the engel pulled itself from its mountings on the factory and leapt hundreds of feet into the air, closing the thousands of feet of distance between them and landing not a hundred feet from her.
2B readied her sword while everyone else opened fire. A rocket launcher sounded kind of nice right about now.
The giant disks the behemoth now had for hands started to come together, and 2B and the spidertrons began to frantically jump back as with another burst of flame the hands came together with an earth shattering clap, one of the spidertrons legs had just barely gotten hit, and the thing was sent spinning in circles from the momentum, though it still looked somehow unharmed.
The attacks continued, and the next few seconds were filled with frantic dodging as android and machine both tried to avoid attacks on a field that was far too small to safely maneuver. All the while they dealt miniscule damage to the things hull. At this rate the platform they were on would collapse.
Just as that thought passed through her head the thing dove under the bridge and ripped out a massive chunk, before its head split open and dozens of slow projectiles were fired, that combined with having less room to dodge led to a few close calls with her and 2B had seen the spidertrons start to take a few hits.
A brief ping from her comms distracted her, but as the arms had just finished an attack the brief opening in her guard wasn’t a risk. One of the spidertrons was broadcasting a message to her. “Cannot contact Balistraia, alternate commander ‘2B’ is requested to provide permission to unleash heavier payloads” Heavier payloads? Besides the fact that she didn’t know what they were, a glance at the relatively unharmed engel just convinced her they were needed “permission granted”.
With those two words a change came over both of the spidertrons, whereas before a few missiles were launched each second now dozens flew from each, a constant trail of smoke and the hiss of propellant drowned out her pods own efforts, which were now looking decidedly meager. Constant explosions started to shake the engel, as its form was entirely obscured by the cloud of shrapnel and heat.
Her advanced sensors picked out that it wasn’t just one type of missile being fired, the varied colors and sizes signify that they had different uses, but the sheer number of explosions and missiles made it so she couldn’t keep track of which missile was responsible for what explosion.
Soon the engels attacks had stopped as it tried to shield itself with its arms, but the missiles just curved around the obstacles, the engel started reeling back as the sheer quantity of explosions started to push it over.
Over a thousand missiles had to have been fired before the engel finally toppled over and fell into the ocean with a splash that showered her with water. The whole exchange had taken less than ten seconds from her giving permission for the spidertrons to fire. How had that many missiles even fit inside those machines? Did they have the ability to make ammo like some pods?
She was distracted from her theory crafting by the sight of 9S swooping down in his flight suit. “So that was the engel you were sent to take down right?, the missions complete then?” 2B was about to answer in the affirmative when the platform shook with a rumble and the engel she had thought destroyed started to stand back up. “No, the mission is over when the engel is defeated” with that the rapid barrage of missiles restarted and 2B and 9S just watched as the engel was once again pelted with hundreds of missiles. 9S broke the silence, if a nearly deafening barrage of explosions could be considered in any way silent, “those spidertrons have a lot of missiles. I talked with a scanner that got to pilot one, but he didn’t say they had anything like this fire rate. And these ones don’t match the description I got off the other scanner, do you think they're a different model?” 2B was about to respond, something along the lines of not talking while in the middle of a fight, when one of the spidertrons spoke. “Correct, we are mark 2, recommendation, seek cover, regular missile fire ineffective and nuclear weapon use has been cleared” that brought 2B up short, nuclear weapons were banned, not even the machines used them. Had she given them permission to use nukes? She had only heard stories before but if they were true they would need to get into cover.
Both her and 9S started a rapid journey and they were soon hidden behind a boulder a hundred feet from the spidertrons, and even further from the engel. The moment they were incover the missile barrage stopped and the engel started using that opportunity to actually stand up, and just as its head cleared the bridge each spidertron fired one missile.
The next second the world went white, the moments later the shockwave hit. Bits of stone and rubble tore up her clothes and synthetic skin. The first actual damage 2B had taken. Without her blindfolds she was sure her sensors would have been burned out. Still the bright flash had only been for an instant, and she had her blindfold. Right now the only thing obscuring her sight was the cloud of dust and shrapnel. But that too started to fade after a few more seconds, letting her see first the unharmed spidertrons and then the corpse of the engel, which was almost certainly dead given the massive hole in its torso and its missing head.
A quick glance at both herself and 9S showed that they were both intact, though covered in cuts of varying deepness faint trickles of red fluid bleed from the deeper cuts. 9S’s flight suit had shielded him from far more of the debris than her though, and her outfit was decidedly ruined.
That wasn’t really a problem though, the engel was dead and the mission was complete. She had started to walk towards the spidertrons when 9S spoke up behind her “uh, the flight suits broke” she turned towards him and sure enough neither of the jets were working and it was dripping fuel and oil from various spots. “Leave it, we can send someone to salvage it later” 9S nodded and unlatched himself from the suit and they both headed towards the spidertrons. Without a flight suit they would need the machines to carry them off the bridge.
Just as they both got to the spidertrons 2B saw three massive shapes rise from the water. Three more engels had arrived after they had destroyed one, how had command missed the build up of this many machines? Still they had a few seconds before the engels arrived, even if they just leapt the distance and that gave her some time to plan, they just needed to survive long enough for the spidertrons to put these new engels down. Another message from the spidertrons killed that hope immediately, “warning, missile payloads 95 percent depleted, only 2 remaining nuclear missiles. Fire power not within estimated range to destroy engels, recommend retreat and artillery bombardment.” it was 9S who spoke up next “I don’t think we can outrun them, there isn’t a quick way off the bridge. But a black box reaction would destroy all of them” 2B agreed with 9S even if she didn’t want to, the mission came first and they could just be restored from backups. Two androids for three engels? It was a simple choice.
But the spidertron spoke up not even a second later “correct, at projected speeds the androids will be unable to escape the engels, negation, a black box reaction is disallowed” with that the spidertron that had picked up the injured android, distinct by the large two on its side, crouched down and its chassis opened.
“Androids are requested to board spidertron 2-2” 2B started to climb inside, even if the spidertrons plan failed, whatever it was, they could still detonate the black boxes from inside. It was cramped and she saw the injured android strapped into the back of the pod but there was room for her, and when 9S got in there was barely enough room for him. It was obvious the pods were only designed to house two androids at most but 9S was small and the other android was unconscious and strapped to the wall.
When the hatch closed the back of it was revealed to be a screen showing the outside of the spidertron, and she felt it lurch into motion. She did have a question though, even with her and 9S not slowing them down a spidertron was slower than an engel and they had ranged attacks “How do you plan on escaping the engels?” she hadn’t even finished talking before she got a reply “spidertron 2-1 will be providing a distraction while we escape, and then detonating its 4 reactors once the engels close distance and we are out of range, projected explosion is less than a black box reaction but will severely damage all engels.” with that the spidertron went silent and 2B watched the ground fly away underneath it, as its legs moved at a speed which left them little more than a blur, obstacles were avoided or simply climbed over and it wasn’t long they were far from the bridge, but still well within range of the engels. As evidenced by the occasional attack sent their way.
Spidertron 2-1 was holding the bulk of their attention though, in fact it was current crawling on top of one while lashing out at the others with its lasers, its front two arms carving into the armor and prying chunks off only so that the lasers could burn more sensitive components deeper within, any missiles fired by the engels were melted and any projectiles disintegrated, but the sheer volume of fire overwhelmed the spidertron and it started taking hits, eventually a brief flicker went over it and its paint started to be marred by shrapnel, and the attacks hitting it left dents rather than leaving it unscathed. It wasn't long before more and more dents and damage built up, a few of its legs started to move slower and one of the arm like appendages was entirely removed.
2B knew what was going to happen just before it did, as a lucky blast of energy entirely severed one of the spidertrons legs. With compromised mobility it would have no choice but to detonate. She was proved right as the screen cut out and she felt the spidertron get picked up and thrown, only the handholds inside kept her somewhat secure, though 9S was less lucky and had gotten thrown from his seat. She only retroactively noticed the harness that she could have buckled in.
The lights flickered for a second, and the screen turned back on, only instead of a view of the outside a diagram of the spidertron appeared, two of its legs were blacked out and the rest of it was red or orange. “Mobility compromised, armor integrity compromised, blast radius larger than expected. Distress beacon sent” with that the screen changed back to what the sensors were seeing, and it was a view of the spidertron rapidly sinking into the water. “Note - spidertron 2-2 unit not equipped for underwater combat, Note - spidertron 2-2 does not like being in the water, other bots only mention bad things happening in the water, recommendation, vacate the water as soon as possible and then wait for pickup” 2B nodded, and ignored 9S as he tried to unlodge himself from the corner, with the spidertron upside down it was proving difficult for him. “Are you capable of getting us out?” it would be far easier to get an extraction if they weren’t a few hundred feet below the ocean.