I scowled. We were losing daylight. Well, less losing daylight and more like we've lost daylight. Night was already approaching, and it was approaching quickly. Even if Nikke's were better off at dealing with nighttime combat than humans were, that still didn't mean it was pleasant. Or even that we should. I hated staying up on the surface overnight, but it wasn't like we had much of a choice. Transit back to the Ark would take far too long by this point.

  With a regular human with us, that left us with no other recourse than to camp it out. And I hated camping, even before the world went to hell in a handbasket. No there were real things trying to kill me, it became so much worse. You could never get a full night's rest anyway, not with them around. Even if the sound of gunfire didn't wake you up in the middle of the night, you'd still have to go on watch at some point in the night, if only for the sake of letting your allies get sleep too.

  And that's if your base of operations didn't become otherwise compromised. That was the worst and always had been the most likely outcome. Raptures ruled the surface. It was their house now, and us squatting in it was always going to attract unwanted attention. Even on the best of days. Decoys were a stopgap measure at the best of times, and would only work for so long in the first place.

  A place was only safe for so long. Part of why I never tried to run away from this hellhole. Sure, life wasn't good, but it was living, and living beat dying, and Raptures had ways of making death seem like the most appealing option.

  Not a whole lot of options other than death or fate worse than death. Even without NIMPH, that alone would allow for some pretty crappy treatment.

  'That looks like a good place for the night.' I followed Rapi's finger, nodding in agreement. It was decently sizable as far as ruined buildings went, with part of its roof there for cover. The walls looked pretty sturdy too, a small blessing, given the certainly none zero chances of us having to get into a firefight.

  And I needed the rest, too. The fighting had left me completely exhausted. I still packed more than plenty of ammunition, but that was about the only good thing I could say about the past few hours. We had enough supplies to keep moving forward. Of course, given how we were starting to get into the danger zone when it came to lacking a simple path of retreat?

  How much I'd be willing to call that good news with that information at the back of my head was admittedly limiting. I would honestly take a clear line of retreat over a lot of things right now. But no, Syuen has to continue to be a dumbass, For a CEO, she was incapable of making the slightest bit of cost analysis, long or short-term. Then again, as far as CEO's went, I imagine that went with the territory. Ingrid seemed to be the one of the three with obvious brain cells, and I didn't trust Mustang as far as I could throw him. You did not last the game for that long by being a crazed epigastric. Not unless you were faking it.

  'It's the best thing we've seen so far.' I sign back, looking through my scope. It looked as if there as a latter leading up towards the roof of the building, which would make for a halfway decent snipping platform if things came down to it.

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  'A cigarette is enough to give a sniper a target on a miles-long shot. A campfire? That's asking for a Rapture to put an artillery shell down on our position!' I sign vigorously, only to remember the person I'm signing at was even more of a rookie than I was. Everything I had told her had likely just flown her head by, likely sailing straight over it by a good half mile. At least.

  Thankfully, Rapi was there to put a stop to things before Neon could light anything on fire. I don't even know where she had gotten all the firewood from. There certainly weren't many trees in the area to begin with, and I highly doubt she'd been lugging them around. Not because a Nikke wasn't strong enough, but because I had no idea where she stored it.

  "No," Rapi's voice was firm, causing Neon to pout. I chuckled at the antics, despite myself. Theirs was a misfunction, yes, but it was an actual misfunction, not what I was used to with Yuni and Mihara, which was some twisted version of being the third wheel.

  Honestly, calling it third wheel may be a bit too generous. I think those were a bit more involved at the end of the day.

  Honestly, I just wanted to tap out and get some rest. Sure, a Nikke could go longer without rest than a human, but that still didn't mean brain rest was unneeded. There was only so much a human brain could take, nanomachines or not. Especially after an entire day of fighting.

  But we still had decoys to set up. I didn't want to, but some degree of early warning was better than nothing, and it wasn't as if Yuni was nearly out the door, curled up against Mihara, using her thigh as a pillow.

  So neither of them was moving for the foreseeable future, which left me, as usual.

  'I'll come with you.' I offered, pushing myself to my feet. Two heads were better than one, and going off on your own in Rapture territory was just stupid.

  Rapi looked at me for a few moments. 'Very well'. She signed back, heading out of the camp, me following behind. I tapped the side of my helmet, bringing up night vision, as a small HUD gave me an accurate picture of the terrain in front of me.

  It was for the best that I headed out. They'd be talking and I wouldn't be able to sleep, anyway.

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  "So what's the mass-produced thing? If the two of you just happen to be a pair of broken but compatible gears, what's she doing here?" Mihara frowned slightly at Anis's words. She had seen the question coming from a mile away. Yet that didn't mean that she had to like it.

  Trying to describe 313N was difficult, outside of Missilis circles. Most didn't bother to question why, because the answer was fairly obvious. Outsiders? They had no way of knowing about Syuen unless they interacted with her for any length of time. And even then, guessing that 313N was there as punishment was not always so obvious.

  "She seems pretty mad most of the time," Neon commented, causing Mihara to raise an eyebrow. Not like the inexperienced Nikke was wrong or anything, because she wasn't. 313N was angry most of the time.

  It was just that she didn't expect her to be able to put that together, given her behavior.

  Truthfully, this was about the happiest Mihara had seen, 313N. The only other time was when 313N seemed to be floating off the ground in pure glee. That didn't last long and ultimately resulted in the establishment of the spider zone after Yuni spread rumors about why 313N was so happy. Rumors 313N took extreme offense too.

  "She does have a lot to be angry about," Mihara sighed. "It's not my entire story to tell, but she remembers far more about her old life than most Nikke's do."

  Or, to be frank, should. But the mind wipe didn't seem to take in the first place, and even if it did now, nobody wanted to risk compromising her ability.

  "How? She's mass-produced, right? How would she remember?" Anis asked, a crease appearing along her features.

  "I don't know. I don't think anyone does," Mihara admitted. She hadn't kept up with the scientists, or how much they were focusing on everything surrounding 313N. There was more than enough going on they could make their own division, just focusing on her. "She just, is."

  Mihara wanted answers, if simply for the sake of giving a simpler explanation. But that answer didn't exist. As far as Mihara was aware, it was a random, if unfortunate act. Not that it made things any better. Far from it. 313N had gotten a raw deal. But that didn't change the fact that she dealt with that fact by trying to make it everyone else's problem. And while Mihara was sympathetic to that bad deal, 313N was all too willing to burn down bridges out of spite.

  And was very good at burning down bridges out of spite. There was an understanding too it, but sympathizing with someone willing to light just about everything on fire had limits. Eventually, they'd capture Chatterbox, or die, and then 313N would become someone else's problem. What happened after that would be none of Mihara's concern.

  "If you want to know more about 313N, it'd be best to speak with her herself," Mihara said with a sigh, stroking Yuni's hair as she continued to rest against her thigh, her sleeping softly, likely because of the long day they had all had.

  "She doesn't like it when you call her that," Mihara's head wiped around to Neon again, the Nikke pretending to poke a campfire with a stick. "It's pretty obvious. She really doesn't like being treated like a not person."

  Mihara knew she wasn't the only one who stared at the Nikke, who had gone back to poking at her imaginary fire. Mihara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She knew that. It was one of those, paradoxes, with 313N. She held onto her humanity, as weird and outright paradoxical as that sounded.

  It shouldn't be a thing. Remembering one's humanity invited insanity, mind switches, and countless other problems. At the end of the day, it was better to forget the painful memories and move beyond them. What little of them tended to remain, which was close to nothing for most. But 313N seemed to turn it into some type of strength, almost mad and demented. It was like watching someone dance around on the edge of a cliff. An impressive display until one single misstep or strong breeze could send one tumbling over the side.

  And it was all to easy for that one misstep to happen, one breeze too strong.

  But 313N stubbornly refused to accept that. To let the past be buried, and accept that this was simply how things were.

  She'd even gone as far as pick a human name for herself. One that was, yes, a fairly straightforward analog, nearly a copy of her identification. Frankly, to consider it a name was a stretch to Mihara. It was likely all 313N could get away with, but it was a poor excuse for a name, one available to her because of pure luck, rather than anything else.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Silence seemed to reign in the camp, until 313N and Rapi returned. It took even less long for 313N to flop down like a cat and then fall asleep.

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  "That's cute."

  I gave Mihara a pointed look.

  "She's crushing his ribs," I countered with a glare. A Nikke's body was not something that a human body could just, support having laying on it. Even a small one, like Yuni. Of course, that was the only reason we probably didn't have a death on our hands. We were going to have to remove her. By force.

  Sadly, I didn't have any grease on hand, so removing her was going to have to be done the old-fashioned way.

  By grabbing Yuni's legs, putting them over my shoulder, and start pulling. Hard. I tried to make it as uncomfortable as humanly possible for Yuni. However, she was clamped on to the commander tightly, holding onto him as if her life somehow depended on it. If it weren't for the hold she currently had on the commander, I would have tried to wrestle her out of position.

  However, she was on there like a limpet, no matter which way I went about it.

  "We already tried that, it didn't work." Anis sounded almost disappointed.

  Very well. Time for the nuclear option it was.

  "What are you doing?" Mihara asked, looking down at me as I bent down onto my knees. In lu of moistening my finger with saliva, I had to get it out of a puddle of water that had accumulated on the ground overnight.

  "The old forbidden art of the wet willy," I say, and before anyone could stop me, I shove my wet finger into Yuni's ear. At first, it didn't seem like what I'd done had an impact. Then, Yuni's eyes suddenly snapped open.

  She woke up with a half-strangled scream, almost jumping a very impressive ten feet in the air.

  "What the hell was that for you ass!" She shouted, immediately blaming me, even if it wasn't like she was wrong.

  "I'm not going to watch you cuddle a man to death!" I shout back, glaring at her. Not only because well, we needed him alive, as well as murder being a crime, but because that had to be one of the saddest ways to go.

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  "This is your life?" Rapi asked, watching the two squabble.

  "Everyday." Mihara nodded.

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  'Yeah, she can't feel anything outside of direct physical contact. If nothing else, I feel bad for her on that, one, very specific front,' I sign, my eyes flicking back to keep an eye on Yuni and the Commander. If one didn't know any better, one would find the scene cute. A picture-perfect image of a father and daughter on their way to school.

  But when the quote on quote daughter was, in reality, an android in a combat model that could easily crush the man's hand with almost causal ease? One that could probably do some on accident, because she just wanted to feel more skin or let her more sadistic urges take over?

  Yeah, I was going to be keeping an eye on her. Even if I didn't trust her as far as I could throw her, the last thing we needed was that man getting injured because Yuni's couldn't keep her hands to Mihara.

  My life is hell, and I hate that the list of things I've had to think was about how a combat mission could be jeopardized by someone getting their hands on someone squishy. What level of hell was I even on?

  And did it really matter? I'd already told Yuni that I didn't want to see any blood, or hear any breaking bones, and I was not going to be happy. Thankfully, unlike most times when it came down to telling Yuni that she shouldn't, she chose to listen for once.

  I think. You could never really quite tell with her some days. Sometimes, telling her not to do something almost guaranteed that she would do that thing.

  It was like telling a child not to play in traffic. A lot of times, they would start inching towards the street for no other reason because you told them not to.

  She didn't like me, so I was spared such treatment in the first place. Really, the only person that Yuni was ever really handsy with was Mihara.

  What the hell was going on here?

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  'Ambush?'

  'Ambush.'

  "Come on! That's like the third one today!" At least Annis was making a decent headway in signing. At least, reading signs.

  'Three snipers.' I pointed out the ruined windows they were hiding behind. 'And supporting units.'

  'Can you deal with them?'

  I was already lining up the shot, after checking to make sure my magazine was full. I gave them a thumbs up.

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  'Chatterbox seems to be pretty stealthy, isn't it?' I halfway tuned out the signing, as the signal, noise, whatever, was getting louder. I was doing my best, but as far as I could tell, it was stationary at the moment.

  'It's modeled after a gorilla, so it being stealthy isn't a surprise. Even including the whole invisible gorilla experiment.' I shrug.

  'The what?' "The what?" I got several responses to that effect.

  'An experiment ran in the 90's. They told people to focus on one thing, before disrupting the shot with a man in a gorilla suit. I think about half the subjects failed to notice. Kinda wild, actually.'

  That was an idea if we made it back. Poke Exia and see if data from that experiment survived the Rapture's arrival. Would be nice for a laugh.

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  Was it this bad last time? Or was I too nervous to have noticed? I couldn't pinpoint the source, but it was close. Too close.

  'Elen?' Rapi signed, picking up on how my head was in a constant swivel.

  "It's here."

  The sound of my voice was enough to get everyone to bring their weapons to a ready position.

  "And you are no fun." The voice sounded like a cross between that of a frustrated man and an avalanche. And yet, it didn't emerge. I scanned the roofline, checking to see if he was coming in from above. It would have been difficult for something of its size to fit into one of the buildings. It had to have been hanging off something we couldn't see.

  The earth shift, a mound, no, a line of soil starting to collapse.

  "Below!" I shout, giving everyone enough time to get out of the way as the ground beneath our feet erupt, Chatterbox's form emerging from the soil.

  "No fun at all." It growled, standing in the middle of our formation. We had it surrounded, for all the good that would likely do us.

  "What an allotment of toys. A strange human," it glared down at the Commander, seemingly curious, before its head turned to Rapi, its face contorting as if smelling. "And the Red Wolf. I always wondered how Absolute was able to stand up to her. Now I know."

  Rapi bristled at its words, her weapon trained on its face.

  "I suppose there are other things here worth my time after all. Two birds with one stone, and all," Chatterbox seemed to sniff the air again, before its face seemed to contort with anger, turning towards me at lightning speeds.

  The moment Chatterbox's head had turned to face me, it froze.

  "Light it up, now!" Yuni shouted, her power taking hold.

  We had weeks to formulate a battle plan, especially now that we knew Chatterbox could work its way around Mihara's power. We didn't have a way to counter it regen, either, but we could mess with it.

  I smirked, leveling my weapon,pointing it directly at what had to be its eyes. Eighteen rounds to each sounded positively wonderful. Activating my power, I squeezed out the two magazines, creating space with the time I had left. Already, guns were discharging, sending rounds, grenades, and missiles towards Chatterbox whole it could barely move. It did scream in pain though as my bullets tore through what would have been the equivalent to its eye socket.

  The damage was building up, but.

  "It can heal itself?"

  Shit. It was already using that? I wanted to ignore what I saw, but the metal was bending back into its proper shape, even when under fire. Cables and wires in its face began to reassemble themselves, it's eyes coming back online. I scowled, lining up another line of shots, sending a second batch down range into each eye.

  This time, however, its head jerked up, bullets piercing into its torso, which, while damaging, was not what we needed right now.

  "It's got its eyes back!" I shout as a warning, what little good it would do. I took another step back, firing away into it's body.

  "You really think this will go better than last time!" Chatterbox roared. "There is no Pilgrim to save you this time!"

  Yuni ducked under Chatterbox's tail, dodging a blow that easily could have crippled her. But it left her open as it pivoted, slamming into her and sending her into a nearby building.

  "Yuni!" Mihara shouted, only for Chatterbox to pounce, the blow catching her in the chest.

  A grenade caught him in the face, snarling, only for a cruel smirk to form. Even without my power, time seemed to slow down. He turned, tail aimed toward the Commander. Rapi, Neon, and Anis all seemed to shout, trying to move to protect their Commander, but none of them were going to reach in time. I knew they could.

  I breathed in and blurred. This was going to hurt, but it was better than being hit by Chatterbox's tail. For him, anyway.

  I slammed into his side, my kinetic energy transferring to him in one moment. The next?

  Pain.

  The funny thing was?

  I don't think the screaming was me.

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  "Everything for the Queen."

  "Everything for the Queen."

  "Everything for the Queen."

  "Everything for the Queen."

  "Would. You. Shut. UP!"

  SMASH!

  "Mirror. Mirror?"