Hello. it's been a while hasn't it? Here's the fourth chapter into this. and let me say this: I am not impressed. halfway through the chapter, my mind went blank. I've already planned what i want to happen but how i'm going to initiate it was well on beyond me. after that I had some Microsoft word issued. my product key expired and i can't afford the full version one. so I found this one called Suitesuite WordGraph Editor, which I first thought was my saving grace in the situation...until it ultimately lost almost have the chapter with no possible way of recovering the lost data. so if you think that chapter is short, rushed and all over the place. Blame Suitesuite and my lack of patience.

P.S: i'm sorry for this terrible chapter

"Alright, time to see what they got going on…" 4S looked behind him as his three companions were also busy with scouting the floor beneath them. They were currently crouching, atop a small walkway above a large clearing from inside the Factory. Beneath the four androids was a large group of machines seemingly arguing with a single, other machine lifeform that stood atop a pedestal.

"We want a leader!" One machine lifeform said.

Another spoke up, "Equal…rights, to all!"

"We…want democracy!"

4S was confused at what he heard; and judging from the faces of his companions, they too were just as lost as him.

"Democracy? How the hell did the Machines learn of such a concept?" He whispered out to the group.

"This is just like the Forest Kingdom," 9S spoke up, the other two androids nodding their heads.

"Wait, what Forest Kingdom?" Now 4S was genuinely confused. Why the hell did all the interesting things happen to these three and not him? He shrugged at his own thoughts.

"The Forest Kingdom was a group of machine lifeforms inhabiting the forest area near the commercial facility. It appears that the machines the inhabit the forest has the sense of knowledge about Monarchy," Pod 153 explained.

4S raised an eyebrow, "Okay, first: Monarchy, then Democracy," He turned to 9S, "What next, Dictatorship?"

A yell of pain and a sound of metal clanging from beneath them echoed within the room. 4S and the others looked down in horror as the machines who were rebelling were now pieces of scrap, laying on the cold, steel floor.

The big machine standing on the pedestal glared at the remaining few machines alive, "Anyone... else that dares question my authority?" Its weird, deep voice spoke out loud. "All who oppose me… shall be terminated…"

A2 glared into 4S' direction, "You and your big mouth!"

"Shhh!" 2B shushed A2, "They might hear you from below."

"Agreed. Unit A2 should refrain in using loud voices to prevent mission failure," Scolded, Pod 024.

"Don't tell me what to do!" A2 roared angrily.

"INTRUDERS!"

4S deadpanned, "And there goes our cover… great work Banshee, you did it again." He stood up as the rest of the three did so too, "Alright, 2B just as planned, you're with me. 9S and A2. You two, go look for any more information that you can find about these meetings."

A2 grunted, as 9S kept silent.

4S sighed, "Nines… you exceed my capabilities in every aspect when it comes to information gathering…" He placed a hand on 9S' shoulder, "Can you do this?"

A few seconds and the white-haired shota nodded, "Alright. But what are you two gonna do?" He asked.

4S looked back down to the rampant machines, looking for them. He grinned. "A little commotion would get these guys off your backs while you two go do espionage."

2B, who was quiet all this time spoke up, "So we jump down there and wreak havoc?" 4S shrugged, he looked down as he jumped. His Pod floating suite.

Her eyes followed the black-haired lad as she sighed. And she too, jumped over the railings. But instead of floating down on her Pod, she decided to give the machines a hardy blow by punching the largest machine in the group as she crash landed on the floor.

"Nice landing. Ten out of ten for me!" 4S began as he fought off some of the machines that got close to the duo.

"Thanks, I try," Said 2B as she too grabbed her Virtuous Contract from behind her back.

"Androids… Androids…"

"Must kill… Must kill…"

"There's no end to them!" Yelled out 2B as she took care of another machine; only for another to immediately take its place.

4S looked around as he tried to find a path, but from the sheer number of machines, the elevator was a bit too out of reach. Unless… "2B!"

"Yeah?" 2B answered, she looked at 4S who was pointing at the open elevator. There wasn't that much of a distance between them and the door; the only thing keeping them in being the machines blocking their way.

"Our Pods! They could blast a hole into that wall of machines!" 4S pointed out. "My Pod's already charging up!"

"On it! Pod!"

Both Pods charged up their energy to maximum outputs as both simultaneously fired in the same direction, causing a hole into the machine's death trap.

4S quickly grabbed 2B's hand as he dragged her along with him. "Run like hell!"

The two managed to crash to the open elevator door, only to notice that said elevator… was missing.

4S looked down, "Ah, fuck…" He then looked at nowhere, looking as if he was staring straight into someone before falling down the elevator shaft, in the most comical way ever.

9S and A2 sped through the countless walkways as they chased the 'Dictator' among the machines. The Plan? Their plan was to catch the machine lifeform and squeeze out as much information from it as possible.

If only they could find him… her? It? Yeah, it's probably It.

The two stopped at a two-way split, "Where to?" A2 asked out of the blue.

"Dunno," 9S admitted. He looked both ways, "Pod, go scan for any machine lifeform signals that resembles the big one from the pedestal from earlier."

"Affirmative, scanning for nearby machine signals." Pod 153 hummed for a few moments, "Machine signal found. It is coming from the room up ahead in the left direction."

A2 and 9S nodded to each other before running left at the split. On the way whilst they were running they noticed several android bodies scattered around.

"What the…" 9S stared at the dead corpses, "Some of them aren't whole…"

"So, what?" A2 questioned. "They probably lost their limbs when they were fighting for their lives."

"Yeah but…" 9S looked at the giant piles of dead android bodies, "This is too much…"

The 'Leader' of the machines stood atop one of the piles, eating on a YoRHa unit arm. Slowly the biped turned to the two units; eyes glowering red. "Food."

"Did… did this thing just called us food?" 9S asked.

A2 quickly drew her Type-40 blade, "Does it matter? Let's kill it." She quickly charged.

"Wait! We need it alive for questioning!" 9S shouted as A2 and the machine lifeform commenced battle, he sighed. "C'mon Pod. Let's go before she ends up killing our info source…" 9S and his Pod jumped into the fray.

4S groaned as he sat up, "Pod… a little light could help," He said as he saw through the nothingness of the darkness.

He heard an 'Affirmative' before his began to see where they are. He abruptly stood up, hand on his abdomen. Looks like he suffered a good amount of damage from the fall.

"2B?" He called out.

"Over here…" A desperate voice cried out.

He began to run towards the source of the voice, once he arrived he saw what was going on, 2B was impaled on the stomach with one of the steel rods. "Ohh…" He blurted out.

"Little help…?" 2B weakly asked.

"Yeah, yeah… Let's get you out of there…" 4S walked up to 2B and grabbed both her wrists. "Okay, I know we're androids and all… but this is gonna hurt. A lot."

"Just get on with it!" 2B hissed.

"OKAY!" 4S yanked 2B as her stomach began to slowly slide off the steel rod, 2B screaming in agony as she got herself pulled off from impalement. "Thanks…" She managed to breath out.

4S kneeled next to her, "Can you move?" He examined her wound, as 2B merely held onto her bleeding stomach.

2B nodded as she tried to stand up, but fell back on her behind. "Welp, that answers that…" 4S mumbled. He grabbed 2B's arm as he put it over his shoulder, he then continued to support her as she stood up and began to walk with him.

"Where are we anyway...?" 4S questioned.

"Scanners say that this is an underground level of the factory facility. It appears that it has been blocked off by the machines." Pod 042 said.

"Mind finding us a way out?"

"Affirmative."

4S continued to support 2B as they walked slowly into the dark corridors of the underground facility.

"Thanks…" 2B mumbled off.

"Don't mention it…" 4S blindly said as they continued walking.

After a few hours of endless walking, 4S slowly put 2B down as he himself sat down beside her. "Can our restoration items even fix a wound that big?"

2B shrugged. "I have no data regarding that issue…"

"Well, let's try it anyway," 4S said. He then, supported 2B as she tried to use her recovery items; which seemed to help a lot. "Well; it worked out…"

"Yeah."

"Can you move properly now?"

"In a few…"

"Okay."

"All this though..." 4S relaxed; leaning on a wall.

"What about it?"

"Well to start it out, Machines that want to be led peacefully. A tyrant in the works. Plus I sense something else that's gonna happen."

"Something else?"

"Like a war or something, there's just this…gut feeling that I have," 4S explained.

"…We don't have guts." 2B told him.

4S laughed cheerfully, "No 2B… we most certainly don't…"

2B wondered aloud, "I wonder how the other two are doing…"

"Well…" 4S looked at the dark corridors. "They're probably doing a whole lot better than we are…"

"Hold it still!"

"I'm trying!"

"Dammit, it's getting away!"

"Don't you think I can't see that!?"

"After it!" 9S ran after the tyrant machine; A2 following closely behind.

"Dammit; first it tries to eat us, then it runs away from us!? Just let me kill it already!" A2 shouted to 9S; In pursuit of the runaway machine.

"No! it's a source of valuable information!"

A2 grit her teeth, "Fine!" She activated B-mode as she quickly ran faster than 9S. She found the machine cornered. It was only her and the machine; she then grinned. "Now… I'm just gonna cut off your limbs so can't get away…" She raised her sword. "This'll hurt… a lot." She brought it down as steel cut through steel.

"Did you get him?" 9S asked as he caught up.

"I did. Here." A2 tossed him the limbless body, but the machine itself was still alive.

"Food." The machine spoke up.

9S sighed. "Let's get this over with..." He muttered as he kneeled down next to the body and began extractiong information through hacking.

"Well? you got anything?" Asked A2.

9S' was silent before he muttered something, "A civil war..."

"A what?"

"A civil war." 9S spoke up, clearly this time. "The machines are planning to do an all-out large scale war to determine which is the strongest among their ranks..."

"But...why?" A2 asked again, concern could be heard from her voice.

"I don't know... the reason could be anyth-" 9S cut himself off as he paused for a minuted and gathered his thoughts.

"What?"

"The Ark." 9S said. "It took the machine network, all their memories and everything along with it."

"So?

"So, without the network. all machines are left to their own devices. no more hive mind that rules over all. They're discovering differences in their own suites. Their personalities, mannerisms. everything. They're beggining to think for theirselves instead of being told what to do by the network. They're beggining to recognize individuality..."

"Like Pascal? we've seen a bunch of machines to leave the network and live peacefully. So what differentiates these one from the ones who left the network?"

"Pascal's village. all the machines there aren't the only ones to leave the network. The Forest Kingdom machines also did. But a machine that's as close to this that remember would be Simone. A machine who understood the concept of 'beauty' and became obsessed to it." 9S finished.

"So what now? a civil war between machines. Isn't that good for us? I mean the machines are planning to kill each other." A2 questioned.

9S shook his head. "Once the war is done, the machines, if there's any laft would be united under one leader. It'll feel like fighting the network again except the machines will be more organized. intead of simply having the order of 'kill androids' they're going to be coming at us full force."

"Then we'll hit'em back!" A2 growled.

"How? without the network here or not. The world is still covered with machines. There's only four of us that are YoRHa androids capable of fighting. And the rest of the androids are outdated. We don't have enough firepower to be able to counterattack." 9S reasoned out.

A2 looked away and growled under her teeth.

9S sighed as he stood back up. "Let's find 2B and 4S. We'll go back to the Resistance Camp and share this intel with Anemone. God knows we all need it."

A2 nodded as she followed 9S to search for their allies.

She hoped they were well.