V O L U M E F I V E

Chapter 101: The Emotionless Blade

Reaper stepped off the AC-130 first, the salty sea wind catching his cape and throwing it to the right. The landing pad was new, a long runway of reinforced asphalt stretched across metallic railings rising from the water, connected directly to the courtroom that sat above the sea as always.

The courtroom itself was a massive Greek-style castle, sprawling outward from the sea in every direction. Thick ceramic pillars held it up on all sides, and the roof was a flat black surface, a sharp contrast against the white ceramic walls, both inside and out.

He carried a small, cloaked figure across the platform. Repair bots were already lined up at the entrance, waiting.

Shelly and Behemoth followed shortly after. The platform shuddered with every step Behemoth took.

Reaper set 11 down gently onto a moving bed the medic bots had brought out to meet him. She kept staring at him the entire time. ‘How can someone who destroyed the G-Bots without hesitation, cut them apart and wiped out Alteans in bulk, how can that same person be this gentle?’ She couldn't stop herself from smiling.

Reaper spoke in a low, cold voice. "Is the room ready?"

The medic bot nodded carefully. "As you ordered, Lord Reaper. All of Shelly's warehouse containments were transferred to a new room inside the castle. We now have a fully equipped repair bay, enough to restore 11." It tilted slightly to look past him. "And… your new E-UNIT companion."

11 snapped out of her thoughts. "Wait, you did that for me?"

Reaper nodded, scanning the new room through the security feeds in his HUD. "You are a valued member of the Golden Circle, as our citizens like to call it. And I still have a plan that requires a fully stocked E-UNIT repair bay."

11 laid back against the bed with a quiet smile. "Efficient as always."

Shelly leaned over her, blocking the sun. Her voice dropped to just above a whisper, somewhere between a reminder and a warning. "Don't get too comfortable. You're supposed to be an assassin, aren't you? Behemoth filled me in during the flight. Either act like one or step down from your position."

"What?"

The medic bots wheeled the bed away before she could get an answer, leaving 11 to sit with her confusion. Shelly straightened up and stood beside Reaper as though nothing had happened.

Reaper closed the security feed and turned to Behemoth. "General, the simulation room is ready. It updates in real time from our mechs' field reports, you'll want to review it before the borders need managing."

Behemoth knelt briefly. "Thank you, Lord Reaper. I'll reach you through our communication channel if anything unusual comes up. Excuse me."

Shelly watched him go, the platform trembling under his weight all the way to the door. "How formal can a robot get?"

Reaper laughed quietly. "He has the manners of a knight. He's living proof that no matter how well you treat humans, they'll still turn on you eventually, for reasons that only make sense to them."

Shelly smiled. "You've changed a little, brother."

Reaper exhaled slowly. He walked to the edge of the landing bay and sat down, legs hanging over the side, watching the Maridian Sea move beneath him. The sound of the waves was constant and low. The salt in the air was almost thick enough to taste. Shelly crossed over and sat beside him without a word. "You were right. This is better than that battlefield." She looked out at the water. "I missed Metromania—I mean, Theria."

Reaper shook his head slightly. "I wonder sometimes if renaming everything was more confusing than it was worth. I could have just claimed the south, built something new there. It's mostly empty land, the desert makes it easy for people to let go of." He looked down at the water. "But then I remember exactly how every human we faced behaved, and suddenly erasing those twenty million doesn't feel like enough. I can't stand them. Even the ones who claimed to fight for our rights ended up doing worse than the ones who never pretended to care."

Shelly turned her head slowly toward him. "You killed how many, exactly?"

"Twenty million, not counting the army I buried alive in Printemps. Automa, now."

She swallowed. "Wow. I mean… congratulations?"

Reaper tilted his head up. "I know. But in a fight, if you don't show how far you're willing to go, you'll only earn the respect of the weakest people in the room. We needed to show what we were capable of to get our freedom."

Shelly leaned back, resting flat on the platform, staring up at the sky. "I'm not judging you. I have blood on my hands too, worse methods, honestly. I can still hear the screaming of the soldiers I killed with a blade." She paused. "But that feeling is fading. Father helped with that, strangely enough. So did the hate."

Reaper kept his eyes on the sea. "I know that numbness." He turned toward her slightly. "I missed you, Shelly. Every day after you were gone, I pushed harder and further, trying to bury something I couldn't put out." He looked back at the water. "I can't really explain how glad I am right now."

Shelly smiled at him, leaning forward with her legs swinging off the edge. "I'm glad too. I had to stop myself from running straight back to Metro—Theria the moment I had the chance. But there was something I needed to do first."

Reaper finally asked. "That reminds me. How did you survive? I had robots maintaining your body. I reviewed our shared footage whenever I had a moment alone."

Shelly laughed quietly. "Your warlord look doesn't match those words at all." She straightened up. "Do you remember the giant crystal I used as a network amplifier? That crystal held me, Omega, or Shelly, whatever you prefer to call it. It had much less stored energy than my original crystal."

She stood and started walking the edge of the platform, arms out slightly for balance. "I couldn't actually delete myself when I tried in that hallway, the last place we saw each other. So for 02 to come back, I transferred myself into the large crystal at the E-Police station. Low energy meant I stayed dormant and silent."

She stopped near Reaper, hands behind her back. "Then you brought my shell there. The crystal reconnected to the shell it was familiar with on its own, using whatever energy it had left to move me into this body. Luckily you and 05 had installed a battery in every shell, but it was nearly drained, and the E-Police charging stations had been cut off from power." She wobbled slightly at the edge. Reaper caught her arm without looking. She sat back down and kept going. "So I walked to a city where the E-UNIT charging stations were still running."

Reaper stood, facing the sea. "So you lost your Omega abilities as well."

Shelly's smile disappeared. "Yes. I won't be much use to you. I'm sorry."

"Where is your memory stored now?"

"The SSD of this shell, I think." She pressed a hand to the side of her head. "I genuinely don't know much about my own state. It's unsettling sometimes."

"Go to Theria's main server and upload a backup of yourself every day." He turned to her. "I'm not losing you again."

She went still. Then a wide smile spread across her face. "Of course. My brother, Lord Reaper."

He put his arm around her small shoulder. "About your abilities, I may have found a solution."

Green Pocket Forest. 13:10.

The Green Pocket Forest was as still as it ever got. The sun was sinking behind the mountains of Aqua Frost, pulling the sky from blue to a deep, burning orange. Wildlife moved undisturbed through the undergrowth. The humans hadn't touched this side of the country yet.

Tau lay flat under the tree, staring at nothing. She'd been that way for hours, frozen somewhere between thought and paralysis, her eyes fixed on the same leaf without actually seeing it. She had created a factory-reset 02 that morning, and now 02 was gone. Wandered off to "scan the area" for threats and hadn't come back since.

The sound of rustling bushes came from her left. Tau shifted forward onto her knees and looked.

It was 02.

Her white and blue armor was caked in soil, several different kinds by the look of it. Her face, once clean and reflective, was streaked with dark stains that had no obvious source. 02 walked over, sat down beside Tau, and saluted.

"Full report is ready," she said firmly.

Clang.

Tau slapped herself on the head hard enough to send a cluster of birds exploding out of the canopy above them. "W-What were you doing out there?! Y-You spent twelve hours scouting?! How did no one notice a 1.7 meter blue and white android wandering through the forest? What are you, a ninja?"

"Thank you, Tau," 02 replied precisely. "Your words are very flattering."

Tau's expression collapsed. "I-I made a mistake turning you on. Where is that terminal device—"

"Turning me off at this moment would not be optimal, ma'am." 02's face shifted slightly, something just short of urgency. "I discovered a group of ten spies moving toward Elysium from the Western State. At their current pace, they will reach our position in approximately one minute."

Tau let go of the PC tube. It hit the ground. "Why didn't you lead with that?!"

"You did not request a briefing, ma'am. And I am already detecting three signatures to our left." Her head snapped sideways. "One has already spotted us and is reporting our position as we speak."

Tau looked around. The trees stood still. Nothing moved. "You've completely lost it—"

02 grabbed her, threw her over one shoulder, and leapt away from the tree in a single motion. Tau hadn't even drawn breath to complain before a sonic blast tore through the trunk behind them, splitting the bark clean down the middle with a crack that rolled through the forest like thunder.

02 landed several meters away and set Tau down carefully. "Three approaching from the north, ma'am."

Three men moved out of the treeline. They wore black from head to foot, faces covered, moving with the kind of measured, deliberate calm that came from military training. The weapons they carried were heavily modified sonic rifles, each one fitted with a laser-switching mechanism along the barrel.

"I-I'm too weak to fight, you need to do something!" Tau stepped back.

"Negative," 02 said. "I am not currently armed. We should—"

"You m-m-metal-head!" Tau snapped. "Y-You have two blades strapped to your back!" The men began charging their weapons. The air around them started to vibrate, a low hum building in the space between the trees. "Q-Q-Quickly, please!"

02 reached behind her. Slowly, she drew both blades.

The Omega symbol on her chest, previously a faint white, blazed to life in full blue. Light poured outward, swallowing the space around them, the trees, once green and brown, now cast entirely in cold blue. The soldiers recognized the symbol immediately. And the blades. Especially the blades.

"Code red initiated."

They turned and ran, scrambling to reach the rest of their group. "This is Group Charlie, robots spotted south-west of the forest, what—" The transmission cut out. 02 had found their frequency in real time and severed the line.

She moved around them in a wide arc, landing directly in their path. The run stopped cold. Her voice came through their earpieces. "My captain has issued a direct order to eliminate you on sight. You are a threat to our existence. Brace yourselves."

Tau's jaw dropped. "When did I—"

02 launched forward. The distance between her and the soldiers closed in fractions of a second. They tried to raise their weapons but the rifles were too heavy to swing fast enough.

Her blade caught the first man.

Sleek.

The plasma edge passed through both his arms like they weren't there. The weapon hit the ground. So did two sets of hands. The man stumbled backward and fell, the scream coming out broken and wrong, pain and confusion fighting each other across his face before the sound finally tore free.

02 left him alive. She'd need him later.

She turned to the second soldier. He fired, a near-silent sonic pulse that struck her head-on. Her HUD flickered briefly. Nothing more than that. The Omega body had been built for far worse. She thrust her blade directly into the barrel of his weapon. It shuddered, locked, and detonated in his face.

He went down. Before he could process what had happened, 02 dropped onto him.

Clang.

Blade already at his throat. "You are a failure of a soldier."

Sleek.

One motion. Clean. The body stopped moving, and the head hit the ground a moment after.

02 turned to the last man. He was shaking badly enough that his finger couldn't find the trigger. "Come on, you piece of crap!" he hissed at the weapon, his voice cracking.

02's eyes went fully blue. Her wings spread on their own. A wide blue aura surged outward, washing over the soldier and the trees behind him. Her footsteps were nearly soundless, just the soft press of grass underfoot and the low hum of the plasma blade.

The man backed up until the tree stopped him. "Please. I'm sorry. We never met, I'll say nothing, I'll tell no one—just let me go. Please."

She held the blade several meters away from his neck, parallel to it. He could feel the heat from there. A slow, steady burn against his skin.

"Orders must be fulfilled." Her voice was level. "You're a soldier. You already know this."

She drew the blade sideways, slowly, at a distance, through the empty air. A crescent wave of superheated blue plasma detached from the edge, distorting the air as it flew.

His neck began to open in the same motion, a clean plasma burn working its way across, the edges glowing faintly where the heat touched. The cut deepened as the blade moved.

Until,

Thud.

His head hit the ground. The body followed a second later.

Then the trees behind him caught up with what had happened. A line of them, twenty meters deep, toppled one after another as the wireless edge finally reached them, each trunk coming down in sequence like something being crossed off a list.

02 sheathed her blades and turned back to face Tau.

Tau was sitting completely still, jaw open, eyes somewhere between terrified and speechless.

02 saluted. "Mission accomplished, ma'am. Shall we proceed to interrogating the surviving soldier?"