The mission was simple, they were to scout the inside of the gates that were passable both ways. Krogar speculated why were civilians tasked with this job, guessing that it was a safety measure. An ordinary uneployed low-life, who were applying for the job, could be interrogated one hundred years, but it would do no good to a potential enemy, as they simply knew absolutely nothing of military affairs.

The first thing he did, was changing the parameters of his body. Sadly, he did not dare to change more than the color of his hair to black and the color of his eyes to blue. He had thoughts about modifying his body more, but he decided not to the moment he remembered his kevlar finger.

To make everything worse, the leader of their five-man team was Lucy, because this was her second mission. He decided to keep his identity hidden from her at all costs, becuase he did not know why she had discarded him so ruthlessly.

"We should iintroduce to each other, my name is Lucy and I will be the squad leader." Lucy replaced the officer when he left. She acted casually, not paying much attention to her companions, from her point of view, they were just something extra she had to drag along.

"Sure, I am Mark."A bland guy said, but Krogar was too stressed out to pay any attention to him and his other companions, only feeling his heart pumping more and more blood into his head as his turn was drawing near.

"Victoria, Victoria Andin." He blurted out, almost interrupting what the one before him was talking about. He had not enough time to think of a better name. Therefore, he used the name of the deceased vampire.

Thankfully, his face was covered and could not betray his emotions.

"Alright, we will set off at noon. Dismissed." Lucy smiled and Krogar thanked all the saints that she considered them just baggage, not paying much attention to their introduction.

The moment he grabbed the door handle, he heard the familiar voice of the officer, who had just entered the room.

"Wait, you should go right now. There will be military rations if you are hungry, you can eat on the road. I hope it is not a problem." The officer looked at Lucy, but she just shook her head. Krogar turned back, while a corner of his mouth twitched. He had naturally intended to never show up again, but his plan had been foiled by the officer's sudden intrusion. He could still back out openly, but that could arise suspicion, for there was not much pretext to use.

Soon, a self-propelling carriage stopped in front of the office and they walked out to get in. Krogar did not know if a car was not a better term, but it just felt too far fetched to call it a car.

"I will see you off, I have some business to attend to by the gate anyway." The officer said.

"Clearly, he wants to make sure that we enter the gate right?" Krogar thought while sitting downin the spacious carriage.

The ride was a smooth one, the man named Dester was constantly trying to keep some conversation going, but no one seemed to be interested. Their stress level was too high to act like the mission was nothing, these kind of jobs being dangerous was common knowledge.

The speed of the car was no joke and they could see a familiar glowing circle in the distance after just about an hour.The officer seemed to want to say something upon seeing the gate, but decided to stay silent.

Krogar was grateful Lucy was driving the car, she had to pay attention to the road. more precisely to the terrain, as they were already going off the road. The gate was situated near the edge of a pine forest, half-buried in the field.

"Cabbage field." Mark uttered in a low voice, leaving no doubt about his opinion of this vegetable.

"Stop, secure the .. " The officer stood up and while looking around, his head exploded in a spray of bodily fluids and little pieces of brain matter and bone, with the tint of. .. {the essey dealing with the intricate beauty of a squashed skull removed by author].

"A Sniper!" Dester shouted, but a half-second later his brain joined the joyous state of the officer's one.

Lucy, Krogar and Mark jumped out of the vehicle and ran frantically to the portal, which was only meters away, the fourth man choosing to run in the direction of the forest, for which he paid a high price shortly, because the forest was the origin of the shots.

When they were only two meters away from the portal, Krogar noticed the ground was wet and leaped into the air instinctively. Soaring the last meter through the air, he watched as the water turned quickly into ice, as the ice trap triggered and frozen the legs of Mark and Lucy in place. Due to his swift movement, his hood fallen off his face, revealing his true identity. For a split of a second, his eyes met with Lucy's, her face slowly turning into that of a shock, as it was impossible to not recognize herself in Krogar's features.

"Damn you." Krogar cursed and in a split second decision took off his scarf and threw it around Lucy's neck, flying through the portal while still holding the scarf tight in his hands.

He tumbled out of the gate, feeling as the resistance gave way the moment Lucy's legs broke out of the ice on the other side,

Soon, half frozen body flew out of the portal, bumping into the ground next to him.

"Move Lucy!" Krogar did not wait and continued to run, assuming the enemies would not give up easily.

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"What scarf is this?" Lucy had no trouble keeping up with him, while untangling his scarf from her neck.

"My scarf." He took his scarf back. An ordinary one would have snapped for sure, but the vampire had been probably using it as garotte and its tensile strength was nothing to scoff at.

"You are not human, no human would be able to dodge that, even I have not noticed in time." Lucy said in a matter-of-fact way and looked at him in a strange, suspecting way.

"First run, they won't be far behin-d." Krogar tried to brush it aside, but he was forced to halt his staps, because of a wall in front of him.

"This is a cave and one with no exit at that, we are running nowhere."Lucy said and both of them glanced at the portal behind them. "Let's dig and hope this is not a sea floor."

They quickly began to dig an up-sloped tunnel using their bare hands.

"Ouch." Krogar shook his hand after a second, his claws were not sharp enough to substitute for a drill. Hard rock was still a big no, no for his sharp, recractable claws.

"Just go watch my back." Lucy said, having no such problem with her hands. "And Krogar?"

"Ehhh?!?" Krogar's eyebrows almost soared into the sky.

"Don't shit your pants, I don't bite." Lucy smiled.

He was looking at her warily, ready to dash through the portal again as his death was inevitable if he was to fight Lucy.

"I can imagine what you think, but you can take your state as my parting gift." Lucy continued, but Krogar was still frozen solid with surprise.

"I do not understand, why haven't you just . . "

"I am not the original software, simple." She paused for a second in digging, looking at the hole absentmindedly.

"Leonard had a crazy idea to save me at least in this form. He contacted Yan agents who helped him hack into the fully prepared software right before its launch. He rewrote the Lucy you met while on your first mission and placed there me instead. Yan helped him happily, because I was objectively less competent to fulfill the role. I cannot use the reboot you have used, because I am not the original software, the reboot would simply delete me."

"Don't tell me you . . "

"I injected the nanobots into the corpse before the vampire fed on it." She finished and began to dig again.

"Christ Lucy!! You ahould have told me!"

"That whould have changed nothing, this is the only solution Krogar and I would rather solve the energy problem by myself, because it is my problem and mine only."

"Why can't we do this together, huh?" Krogar still did not understand why she was distancing herself from him.

"Because I have other plans aside of finding an energy source and I do not wnat to pull you into it."

"Oh come on, we can make it easily whatever it is, why.. "

"No we cannot, I need to do this alone. We might meet later on, but as a team, we are finished Krogar."While staring at her, Krogar decided to agree with her, it did not look like she was going to change her mind no matter what he might say.

"So stubborn, do it your way then." He gazed at the portal for a long time and when he turned and walked into the digged out tunnel, he found it led into a bigger one with Lucy nowhere to be seen.

"Stupid bitch, she should have at least say goodbye." He grumbled staring into the darkness of the big tunnel.

It was pitch black, but as time flowed, it seemed two lights began to appear at its far end. They were enlarging slowly at first, but the rate quickly changed, leaving Krogar just a few seconds in the end, to duck back into the digged small tunnel.

The train passed above his head with great speed, waking him up from his stupor.

"Oddly no one came through that gate to follow us." Thinking about it longer, it was natural. It was almost certain the system of wells no longer applied here, rendering most of the other world's weapons useless.

"It will be a tight fit, but there is enough space." Krogar jumped out of the hole again and walked in the direction the subway train came from. If they met, he could just lean against the wall.

"I will make it." Krogar saw light in the distance, recognizing a platform for passengers. After a while of running, he saw the train lights again, but considering it should stop by the platform, he should be able to make it just in time.

* * * *

Sabra sat on a comfortable couch, her both hands resting on top of her big belly.

"Oh, she moved!" She exclaimed, not even knowing why she was so noisy. The whole thing just jumbled her brain.

She was going to have a baby!!!

"Ach!" The center of her world had completely shifted, she could not be bothered about anything but the baby, everything else was just completely unimportant.

For a fraction of a second, she felt like she had forgotten something, but that was just a passing small cloud in the whole brightly lit sky of her maternity.

"I think being a houswife will fit me the best. Our bull is important enough to provide for both of us, don'th yo think " She began to babble and squirm, if her previous self saw her, absolute shock whould have been the only possible reaction.

* * * *

"Do you realize, what you have done?" A strict man in a black uniform stared at Krogar, who was seated in front of him.

"Come on, I tell you I was not trying to kill myself and I will not try it again, so .. "

"You have endangered hundreds of lives and caused the subway train to be deleyed by three minutes!" Krogar looked at him with a huge question mark in his face. Right, committing suicide was apparently no big deal.

"I will give you two choices, you can either go to jail, or work with other convicts for a time. There would have been a third option if you had money, but you have already mentioned you have none. At least present you identification card, I hope that you are not hiding from law, or even worse."

"Even worse?" Krogar's eyebrows rose, expecting the worst case scenario to be precisely the one he ends up with.

"I hope you are the citizen of our city, Honopenjokojomo right?" The uniformed man stopped playing with his pencil.

"No?" Krogar smiled, dreaming about an ID.

In fact Krogar was daydreaming about many things.

For example about this whole conversation, because the real conversation had been going like this.

"Blu blabla ble bleee bleble"

"Ah, yes officer of course."

"Blehlehleeeee!"

"I am sorry, but I can't help you. By the way, don't you have some magic for translation or something?"

"BLAAAHBLE HEE E !!"

After these last words, two uniformed men had come and dragged him into a van. He considered killing them, but that would just magnify his trouble.

* * * *

The van started rolling and Krogar tried to stay positive, although it was not easy considering all his escapades up until now.

"Come on Krogar, you are THE AI, the one chosen for a special mission out of the thousands of missions, facing the onslaught and tricks of agents of Yan Collective . . "

Wait. .. Lucy had told him that he had not been chosen at all, it was a swindle of her husband actually.

"That is just a detai. ." And the Yan agents had worked with his boss right? So much for facing their onslaught.

"Fuck, I am just a pathetic AI not satisfying the standart that had been played with by foreign agents." Krogar relized truth is an evil, hurting thing sometimes.

"How it was? Punch a tree!" Krogar turned and readied himself to punch the wall of the van, but understood that would be the moment he would be tasered unconscious by his guards, thus he stopped his actions promptly.

"Just punch a tree, no past glitches matter, just the will!"

"My will to forge the future!" He was extremely teased to begin to shout and do some posturing, considering his guards certainly did not understand him at all.

Deciding to do something more practical for a change, Krogar began to watch the scenery through a window. Currently, he could not see much, but he deduced they were driving through a big city that was very much reliant on modern technology. In many aspects, it reminded him of modern megapolis he had seen pictures of. The only strange landmark he could not get out of his head was an extremely bright beam of light that was going vertically up, from the city center.

It was so bright his eyes hurt and he was unable to tell its diameter, but it looked like a thin, extremely bright beam. At first, he thought the sky looked too dark because of the contrast to the beam of light, but focusing more at areas on the other side of the van, he found out the sky and most importantly the sun was actually much darker, than he was used to.

The van sped up and went into a tunnel, Krogar was not able to focus much longer anyway, the city was too big and the myriad of things he had seen were flickering in front of him in his mind. His long journey ended when the last one of the set of small, thick steel doors closed behind him. The door led ouside of a huge wall that was build around the city.

"Pfff, they have thrown me out!" Krogar gazed into the wild, not wanting to know the reason the wall was here.