-Bunker Server File System v1.1-

-AUTHENTICATION-

CODE: ********************

Privilege Level 7 access granted.

-HARDWARE CHECK-

00 22 03 00 3a 65 02 00 d7 19 05 00 00 00 00 .-..…

5a 01 00 00 a2 00 10 d0 0c 00 07 e0 00 08 00 #...-.[]…

STATUS: COMPLETE.

-cd MK:\logs\

-dir

Volume in drive MK is UNIT_EX_3A.

Volume Serial Number: 42OCF.

11942/03/01 - logFirstBoot_030111942

1194X/05/04 - log_04051194X

1194X/05/07 - log_05051194X

1194X/05/07 - log_07051194X

4 Files, 49 data block(s)

0 Folders, 0 data block(s)

-MK:\logs\log_04051194X

Starting…

I honestly don't know what to do at this point. If it weren't for Operator 42O's orders, I would've had a breakdown in front of the Resistance.

I wandered in, finding trees with strange arrows carved onto them, with a sharp object. So I followed them. Maybe this is some sort of hint? A message? I don't know, and I'm hoping all this training with 10D is going to make a difference now that I'm assigned alone. That one-handed sword we took 801S' odd jobs for, I'm not letting go to waste.

I tear through swamps, with my Treacherous Covenant at the ready as I look to every side, hiding my fear of what I could find, and suddenly…I think I see something. An android. But it's not moving.

I run as fast as I can with my weapon out, listening for the sounds of machine lifeforms—there aren't any, and I feel less and less comfortable in my boots as I approach my target. I clench my cheeks in horror, and hold the tip of my sword closer to my face: not only is he long dead, but his skin was melted off of his frame.

I extend a hand out of my sleeve, turn him around to see his front, and load a hologram of the face they gave me.

It's a perfect match! His body was cut cleanly through the abdomen with a blue liquid dripping through his wires: oil and coolant, mixed together. I've seen it before, and the memories it brings back itch at the back of my mind.

I look at my pod, almost as if I'm pleading to it to let me leave, or help me somehow. "Pod, analyze this unit and its surrounding regions. If there's any data left we can access, let me know!" but despite everything, I know that I can't change this now, so I'll need to be the bearer of bad news.

"Analysis: unit shows no signs of life. The cause of death was to a 99.97% certainty a charged attack, pattern matching the Type-4O Blade, a YoRHa-issue weapon. Hypothesis: this unit was murdered by a YoRHa android. No salvageable data found."

"Wh-why?"

"Analysis: this unit is of an older model line, and has minor defects in memory modules."

"I see." I quietly respond, thinking of a way to figure this situation out.

A YoRHa android..? I start to form an idea of who this might have been, from what we were told by the Council of Humanity.

I walk up to a corner, and find a trail of dark molten metal stretching out as far as I can see.

…

I turn to Pod, and urgently come closer to whisper. "We can't stay here! Call Command, I need them to send my flight unit down. I'll need to come back to investigate later, with reinforcements!"

Pod remains silent, and I lean down, hunching myself over the ground. I wish 10D was here.

A minute later, it answers. "Flight unit location marked on map."

I run as fast as I can towards the marker on my minimap, only to stumble by a strange structure. Tiny machine parts loosely piled on top of each other, metal scraps, and a large plank covering an interior. "Analysis: no enemy found," Pod reassures me.

I throw my sword at the block of wood, piercing through it. Not a sound comes, other than that of the tip of my blade striking down on dirt as it falls down, and it reappears by my side.

I wander in. What I see here, isn't something any machine would've built. Before I lay my sleeve over a dusty drawer by my side, a hologram flashes at my eyes, jolting me in place.

Operator 42O's face surprises me with a look of concern, and I anxiously try to string together a sentence in my mind to explain the rush of information flowing through my mind.

"This is Operator 42O speaking to 5S. I need to know what's the matter with your flight unit request."

-end

End of log_04051194

· Translation mode: Internal only.

"Machine. Stay down here, and don't come up." the stranger said, tensed in his tone and looking off slightly to the side of the back door the man had left from, "We're preparing for the worst." and looked back at the machine, "so carry anything you can out the front door. We will get the laundry later."

The finger was pointed firmly at the machine from above, and he vanished into the yellowish-red sheen surrounding what little it saw of the ceiling and attic, before messily throwing heaps of books, compasses, rulers, wooden tables and desk parts and folded-up sheets of paper all of varying sizes down the stairs, over the ground and the rug. The machine picked up the first book that came by it, and read the title: "Feline Physiology." Certainly an odd subject. I cannot protest however, knowing my similar interest in studying humans, it put the book down a mere instant before being smacked with the sudden drop of a ragged, white sleeping bag with a hood turned brown by years of dust and grime, and a tear in the foot box.

As the machine's look centered firmly on the objective of its order, the stranger's voice spoke out of the blue, almost magnanimous yet unsettling, with its accent and pronounced rhythm. "I dedicate myself.. to learning about my surroundings. And my memory isn't perfect. I know, somewhere, that this mind of mine was looking to accomplish something."

The thumping—and occasional snapping of a table leg, along with the stranger's yelling; likely directed outside, it thought, were barely loud enough to mask the terrifying screams of an impending wildfire. In those moments, it still thought to itself, a researcher such as myself knows the value of knowledge. And that thought made it carry on its head, and hands, despite its joints creaking and almost breaking, every page of notes it couldn't immediately jot down in its memory, every book written in an old world language that it couldn't process, and every drawer, every table, in that order, until the flame's red faded away from the windows.

The attic, it noticed, reverted to a dimmer yellowish glow, and the man pushed through the door, falling in agony, reminding the machine of its own search.

It seems likely now... that is he dead, it looked at the dark, reddened eyelids on his dry, dirt-and-scar-covered face and corpse-like, withered frame.

The armored resident rushed down, and lifted him up, taking on his weight and slumping him upstairs. The cables strewn around the room seemed to start shifting in color, and a dreadful silence washed in from the attic down on the machine, save for the single sound of a switch flipping. The machine however, turned around and noticed the bag that'd remained by its side.

It picked up the sleeping bag, folded it four times in its small hands, carried it on top of its head while climbing each and every step of the staircase at a crawl pace, to make a point to move as silently as possible on the creaky floorboards. It slowly turned its head up, rubbing its metal casing against the fabric of the bag to get a clearer view of the attic's interior; the stranger's hardhat facing away, in front of a cloud of white particles floating around some tubes, electronic circuits and hydraulics stacked on top of each other, in a metal grid. The unaware stranger's voice spoke up loudly. "Machine—if you're still here, move the sleeping bag back up in a short time."

I must know what is ongoing in that room.

The stubby climbed to the top of the stairs, and found itself facing the green of its own eyes reflected off of a saw blade before dropping the sleeping bag on the floor, by the man's side.

"I said, in a short time," the stranger stated, his accent converging with that of the man. "I have things to take care of."

A surgical saw, it noted—in the gloved hand of the stranger, who stood still, shakily wiping the blade with a piece of cloth, before sliding it into an open pouch on his belt, and dropping the bladed object into a toolbox by his feet with a clang, next to the man's unmoving body lying flat, stomach on the ground.

"I have been ordered to transport this bag upstairs by yourself, and I have merely followed suit. However, it seems you were engaging in an activity of some kind, and I inquire as to its nature." the stubby spoke, in its monotone.

He shot a glare at the machine looking around the attic, resting his hand on the closed lid of a metal cylinder built into the rack. "I told you to stay down. We need resources right now," the stranger said, keeping his tone straight before spacing out his words, "food and water," before cutting himself off and turning to look at a dark, dusty tungsten bulb on top of the container. "I do, and your partner does."

The machine looked at the man's body, and back at the resident, bobbing its head slightly to look at his features. "It matters that it is explained to me what may, or may not have been done to my partner."

The stranger opened the lid, revealing the container's dark interior, and slid out the rifle part of his weapon from the side, followed by the rectangular object that was attached to it.

I will attempt to investigate at a later time. I must now find a way to make sure he does not remain in my partner's proximity, however, the machine judged by itself.

"A check of my medical supplies, is what I was doing…" he protested, "I prefer to remain on my own, in such moments." holding his weapon upwards by his side, before sliding it into his belt's holster.

The machine stood still, observing the condition of the resident's muted-greenish frog skin pattern polymer armor—not a single tear or rip, and made a suggestion. "We are in need of resources, as you have said. Therefore, it appears to me that it would be favorable to mobilize for resource-gathering." picking up the edge of the bag's loose-gripping synthetic fiber by its feet and lifting it in its creaking hands.

"In that case," the stranger walked up to the opposite end of the bag and grunted while bending over, "we will put him in the sleeping bag."

…It may turn out difficult to inspect my partner without his supervision, if he is laid out inside this bag.

The two dragged the worn-out bag, swinging it next to the man's body, and the machine grabbed the man's dingy feet, before being met with a look from the resident's face. "Your.. hands seem to be impressed on his skin," he noted looking at a patch of marks resembling its fingers, tightly imprinted on his skin—almost as if it were branded.

"We have found ourselves in conditions where travel options were limited, as you might have known from what you'd observed on our first encounter." the machine replied near-instantly.

The machine lifted the feet, and repeatedly hopped closer to the stranger, both carrying the man before the stubby bounced its feet sideways, and slid his heels down into the hood, and the two moved around the body, attempting to fit it in tightly, glove on the left, and bent cold metal fingers on the right. As they lowered his waist to the ground to insert his lower half in, the stubby turned itself to face the bag, and kept its look on the man, before jumping forward without letting go, pulling his feet out of a now-crumpled sleeping bag. The stranger, alarmed, shouted "What is it that can't be helped with you?!" and strengthened his hold, leaning down and remaining still; the unconscious man had almost fallen through the staircase, one foot dangling, leaning over to the right towards a painful death, or another concussion.

The machine turned its look toward him, and answered without wavering in its monotone. "I have applied a forward force too early." The resident turned his look to the machine, and took a step back to the right, dropping the man on his side, over the sleeping bag.

The stubby stood idly, staring at him. "I have merely committed a timing error."

The stranger suddenly straightened his posture, and abruptly began a march toward the machine, which leapt back twice before finding itself grabbed by the body, suspended in mid-air. "I demand that you cease transporting me in this manner," it spoke louder before turning its head around, and finding itself being held out through the window, to be dropped at a moment's notice.

The stranger's voice came up from behind. "You... will be dropped from here, if you do not cease your irritated act. I…"

It appears that his confusion between participles hints to a limited proficiency in the English language.

Looking below, was a thirteen-foot drop, that would be followed by a bang, clang and an oversized, rusty clockwork toy broken in pieces.

"…will not tolerate you…"

An instant later, it bobbed its head to its right, and noticed a laundry line within swinging distance behind a thick bush, holding tens of dry clothing items.

I fail to comprehend the decision-making process that has driven him not to merely use his weapon to deliver a threat towards myself.

…disrupting my operations." he spoke, a muted yet pauseless fury in his tone, before pulling the stubby back in. "Now," he dropped the machine softly on the hardwood floor, "you will remain still."

"I will." it answered, taking a long look at him taking the rifle out of his holster, opening the lid and inserting it back in; the toolbox inches from its foot. They stood still, as the resident stared on at the bulb until it lit up with the sound of a bell ringing, a muted shade of brown from all the built-up gunk that drowned out the white.

The container's lid opened by his hand, and he pulled out the weapon. "We leave the house now." he ordered, in the same tone unchanged. The machine followed him down around the dropped man, down the staircase and out the back door of the house, and came to a standstill facing the cooked-and-crooked remains of the destroyed power line, drooping into one of many puddles fed by the hose left running.

"It seems that it would be favorable for me to remain indoors," the machine suggested looking at the head of the resident standing in front of it. The latter responded silently, by picking it up in his left arm, and pulling out a utility knife from his belt as he walked out into the field with his right, swinging it swiftly at a cut of the thick cable, and leaning over to grab it with his left. The metal lining on the arm of the stranger's smooth Kevlar armor tightened against the machine's body, as he sprinted through the flooded swath of land, water splashing over its eyes and face with every step of his boots, and the latter took a hold of the hose, pointing it upward until the machine finally found itself face-to-face with the water pump.

"My hands are full. Press the button," the stranger ordered, and the machine's hand shook as it reached toward a small button on the side of the bluish cylinder, before lying its finger on it and pressing it, and the obnoxious screeching of unending hose spillage turned to complete silence. The stranger, now stepping softly on the wetland, thumped his boots on increasingly sticky mud before the stubby had seen itself passing by a small wooden booth, with dark-yellowish stains on its bottom. It appears that this is the facility for bodily waste disposal my partner has entered, it duly noted as it passed by, and hit its foot on a tree stump, falling on its side, and finding its shoulder being tied to it with the cut cable section, looking up to find the stranger standing above and fastening a knot.

"I would greatly appreciate to know the reason as to why I am being currently physically restrained, in this manner." the stubby, lying motionless on its back, said in its monotone. The stranger, looking back down through his goggles, gave one sentence: "I will gather equipment," and walked away, to whereabouts the machine could not make out, disappearing behind the tree stump as it tried to turn its head on the ground and set itself upright, to no avail. The sound of a large wooden door moving barely creaked through its sensors, and the stranger later appeared in front of the machine as briskly as he'd disappeared earlier, carrying several small metal cylinders, each marked with a flammable substance symbol. He pulled out his rifle, this time holding it with one hand, and pulling away on the hanging prism-like object with the other, before lightly pulling the trigger.

It seems that he has been highly angered, and may possibly execute me, if not warn me one final time.

A heated projectile of concentrated energy phased through the cable, destroying the knot and letting the machine loose. It finally propped itself upright with a swift movement from both of its arms, and looked at the stranger, who walked away shortly into the deeper woods before stopping and looking back at it. "You will follow me now."

The machine obliged, and creakily hopped over, following him down into the shade. Tall trees passed by, and its surroundings grew darker as the two made their way, until a small, reddish-brown hare fell rolling down from a knee-high slope in front of them, limping with a third leg protruding from its neck. Its fur was unevenly thick, and completely hid whatever ears, if any, that it may have had; the whirring of the machine's gears, and the stranger's raising of its weapon at its eye met with simple blinking from its only distinguishable eye. The sound of the rifle's trigger pulling, the flash of glowing yellowish pellets of light energy firing out of its barrel preceded the explosion of the hare's insides mixing with its outsides in being shredded to a fuming, rotting paste spread over the dim-lit grass, dirt and shrubs.

"Is there an explanation I may have for the reason behind what had just occurred?" the machine, looking at the hardhat-topped figure from behind it hastily kept up with, asked. A few steps later, he clenched his hands into fists and raised them, "That is not," he showed his face to the machine, scoping it with a stare that shot darts through his goggles, "wild…life!" he insisted, punctuating his every word with weighty movements of his fists in the air.

The thumping of his boots stopped upon the rise of a distant boar's squeal—a voice he'd been more eager to hear than he despised that of the machine. The step of his boots gently teetered closer to the edge on the grass, leaning down and reaching for one of the bright-blue metal cylinders on his belt. Taking a moment to check the flame pictogram, he tossed it out into the air, and eyed it narrowly as it dropped, nearly vanishing into the void below.

The machine, however, veered off to the side, a couple of feet away, over a block of granite, and scourged the view within the depths of the ravine beneath the cliff: the ruins of a freeway built over a gorge canal, covered in countless scraps and bits of corroded metal, and countless carcasses shattered under dead machines of varying sizes, undoubtably of inaccurately-reconstructed vehicles of human make.

A boar, no smaller than the sedan that crunched into a flat panel under its legs, left dents for prints on the roof of a school bus, hunching its face over the glands and loose-hanging berries from the overgrown weeds and plants that surrounded—and overshadowed—bales of rusting vehicle parts and rotting tires, on top of cracked, faltering tarmac. As its snout leaned down to the floor, it tried to bite down on the stranger's thrown canister, only for it to slip out of its mouth time after time. The stranger's hands shook as he stared down his sights, his breath losing its pace as the long rifle settled down in his arms and fired a single shot, aimed at a tiny, rolling dot hidden a league down.

An explosion flared up, to the sound of gas blasting metal to shreds, engulfing the pig and the plants it'd been ruminating in a yellow fireball, and tearing it limb from limb into large splatters of blood, muscle and bone, cooking under the sizzling heat as stacks of vehicles and scraps of machines shook and fell from their places. The banging of metal and glass rang in echo throughout the divide, smashing and breaking around the animal's splattered viscera.

The voice of the stranger was reduced to acute screeching as he let out a wordless cry, a blindsiding lightshow of projectiles ricocheting throughout the divide's depths, striking dirt, rock and plant alike. The machine shifted its look to the stranger lying on his side, looking away from the chaos and holding on to the ground by his head with his rifle up in the air. His goggles had fallen off of his eyes, and it made out his clenched, half-burnt eyelids in the split moment before he'd set them back in place with a gesture of his free hand; the machine stepped down, and came closer before stopping an arm's length from the handle of the rifle laid down by his hand, silent as a pin drop.

An exhale preceded his next order. "Your next action will be to move down to the destroy-" he huffed, "destroyed road below." he finished his sentence, as he stood himself up, holding his rifle tightly as the machine looked at it, before packing it into its holster.

A/N: shout out to the artist behind 5s character, melikitsune (deviantart) she has several drawings of the character on her profile and welcomes visitors!

and thanks to everyone who sticks around here on and on 'archive of our own', 18 months still kicking since my first draft in winword!