Chapter Text
“Chief Andersen, please! I’m only asking you one chance. Just one chance to prove myself!”
“...very well. But you will regret this. If you live long enough to do so, that is.”
As he lay crumpled on the ground, feeling his brain shaking inside his skull, Commander Yong knew that, as always, his superior had been right.
Commander… he had been overjoyed when he had received that title, but it rang so hollow now. He could barely even command himself right now, let alone a squad of Nikkes. Perhaps it would have been better for everyone involved if he just kept lying down and pretended to be dead.
“Commander? Commander, pull yourself together!” a voice urged him. Ignoring it didn't seem like a possibility, unfortunately. He shook his head, and felt a bit of dust falling off his hair. Sounds of shooting came from the distance, before being answered by much closer shots.
“What… what’s going on..?” Yong mumbled as he sat up. In front of him there was a Nikke, crouching on one knee; an iDoll Ocean model, with its smaller frame and stringy white hair. She had a first aid kit in her hands, and even though her eyes were hidden behind her visor, she was clearly staring at him in concern.
“We’ve been targeted by kamikaze Rapture drones,” she said. “You were caught in the explosion, Commander - are you alright?”
His head throbbed as if there were a small toy car bashing repeatedly against the inner walls of his skull, but his breath was normal and none of his limbs seemed to bend in the wrong direction.
“I’m… I’m fine,” he said, standing up. Memories of what he was doing here started to resurface. The Ark had launched a small-scale offensive to eradicate a Rapture nest in the wasteland; he and his squad formed part of the east flank, and they were supposed to intercept Raptures that tried to flank the main force. They had taken position in a ruined building for an hour as the main force reorganized, and it was then that they had been attacked without them spotting any Rapture beforehand.
All of this in his first mission. Wonderful.
“What’s our, uh… status?” he asked.
The iDoll Ocean straightened her back. “iF-1, iO-2 and iS-3 received minimal damage. P-08 and S-FA, however…” She looked to her right, and Yong followed her gaze. There was a hole in the wall, two meters wide, and two of his Nikkes - an iDoll Flower and an iDoll Sun respectively - were taking cover at its sides, taking turns in shooting incoming enemies. A few more meters inside, scattered debris partially covered the bodies of two Nikkes, one with a piece of shrapnel as long as an arm running her through the chest, the other with her lower half missing. Had he been standing a little more to the left, that could have been him.
He tried not to think about it too much - yet, his gaze lingered. Exposed, burnt circuitry hung down in threads from where a pelvis should have been, sending a foul smell of burnt plastic. He had to remind the reptile part of his brain begging him to react more strongly that the thing he was looking at was not a human, and hadn’t been for a long time. It was the same as looking at a wrecked car.
What was this nausea that filled his chest, then?
“Commander?” The voice of iO-2 rocked Yong out of his stupor. “What should we do?”
He didn’t know. Years of training slipped out of his mind, forcibly evicted by the hammering of shots and explosions right outside the wall. Did he really think that studying and tests could prepare him for this ? What the hell had been going through that malfunctioning brain of his when he volunteered for this mission? Why did Chief Andersen accept, anyway? He must have thought of Yong as expendable - not much less than any of these Nikkes, anyway.
The iDoll Flower screamed, before collapsing slowly on her side. “I-I’m hit!” she shouted, holding her left thigh. iO-2 immediately sprinted in her direction, then crouched at her side and started repairing the damage.
He had done it again. He had remained closed in his mind, keeping him from acting. That same reptile brain of his was now screaming at him to move - to do something .
It was evident that they could not stay here. From what he could see, the Rapture force was rather sizable, and half of his squad had been rendered inoperable. That meant they would have been overwhelmed in minutes, and at the same time that trying to force their way through was downright suicidal.
“Commander, say something!” the iDoll Sun shouted as she reloaded, smoke coming out of the barrel of her rifle. “We need to get out of here-”
“I’m trying, goddamnit!” Yong shouted back.
“Then do something!” iS-3 replied. “Unlike us, the Raptures aren’t going to wait for your orders!”
Think, Yong, think! He didn’t see any weapons inside the building - anything at all, really, besides piles of ruined bricks where the walls had collapsed.
Collapsed…
That gave him an idea. He ran towards iF-1, who was finishing getting fixed thanks to iO-2’s skillful repairs. “iF-1, how many rockets do you have left?”
The Nikke gave him a perplexed look, then looked at the bandolier hanging from her side. “Five, Commander.”
“Do you think that’s enough to bring down the building? Or a wall, at least?”
Everyone looked at him, flabbergasted - even iS-3, who up to that point had been fending off the encroaching horde, stopped firing for a moment. “Commander, what the hell are you suggesting?” she said, before going back to shooting.
“Listen, if we stay here, we’ll be eventually overrun. If we lure the Raptures in a little closer and then collapse one of the walls on top of them, we might just be able to create enough confusion to force our way out.”
“Do you think this is going to work?” iF-1 asked.
“I think it’s the best plan I can come up with right now.” Also you shouldn’t be asking, you should just be saying “Yes, Commander!” and do what I said, Yong thought - and kept that thought in his head, because it was no time to reprimand his soldiers about the chain of command, or threaten them with a Mind Switch if they kept being annoying.
“The Commander is right,” iO-2 said with a nod. “What should we do?”
Finally, someone sensible. “iF-1, give me the rockets; I’ll place them against the east wall, since it looks like it’s the least stable. iS-3, keep those Raptures occupied until I give you the signal. Then, you’ll reach us on the other side of the building and shoot at the rockets to detonate them. iO-2, what’s the status of iF-1?”
“She will be fine, but I’m going to need ten minutes to fix her leg,” the iDoll Ocean replied. “As of now, she can’t walk by herself.”
“We don’t have time for that. If it’s only one leg, then you can help her. And give her your weapon - that rocket launcher is only dead weight for now anyway. Now, move!”
As he grabbed the explosive ammo off of iF-1’s bandolier, Yong felt a strange sense of pride swelling within him. Against all odds, he was starting to sound like a real Commander; if he kept this up, and he was lucky enough for the plan to work, they might just have gotten out of there alive.
He wondered if it had been like this for Chief Andersen, too. Had everything simply clicked one time, or did he kept improvising until plans formed in his mind as naturally as he breathed? Was he just born a Commander? It was hard to imagine him as a rookie like Yong himself was. His plan in a situation like this would have been much more refined, and he would have come up with it much faster - if he had found himself in it in the first place.
Chief Andersen wasn’t here, however; Yong was. He was the one who had to make decisions, and live - or die - with their consequences.
“Charges set!” Yong shouted. He was no expert on explosives, but the large crack on the wall made the chances of it coming down look rather promising. He gestured towards iO-2, who followed him towards the west side of the building holding a limping iF-1 under her right arm.
“iS-3! Now!” The Nikke immediately stopped firing and sprinted towards Yong. A second later, a wave of Raptures, each about the size of a large dog, swarmed inside the building, producing a hellish noise of metal clanging against metal as they pursued iS-3. The Nikke screamed as she ran - whether out of fear or as some kind of reflex, Yong didn’t know - and narrowly avoided being ground to dust by the encroaching horde.
She wouldn’t have made it in time. The Raptures were faster than he had thought; they would have caught up to her before she could reach them to safety. Then, it would have been their turn.
There was a simple way out of this. Could he go through with it, however? He looked at iS-3, and saw an all-too-human desperation on her face.
Coming up with a plan had been simple. But being forced to make a decision ? That was what being a Commander was truly about - and Yong had realized it only now.
“iS-3..!” he shouted, his voice struggling to come out of his throat. “Detonate them! Now!”
Even though her visor was solid yellow, Yong felt the look of dismay in iS-3’s eyes. He felt it piercing right through him, hurting him like no pain he had ever felt, even as she turned around to take aim, a Rapture pouncing onto her.
“Get down!” he screamed.
It’s fine. She’s not human. She’s a tool. No more precious than the gun in her hands.
Yong’s body shook once with the explosion, then again as the wall crashed down. Debris rained all over him, hitting his back and his legs, but fortunately not his head. The pelting stopped after a few seconds, but his ears still rang from the blast. Yong lifted his eyes; the building that had sheltered them for the last few minutes was reduced to a pile of rubble, with only some portions of the west wall left standing. No trace of the Raptures - or of iS-3.
“It… it worked, Commander!” iO-2 exclaimed with a beaming smile. The left part of her visor had been broken off, revealing a blue eye underneath. iF-1 simply gave them a thumbs up.
Yong was surprised it had. After minutes of continued shooting and metallic buzzing, the silence was almost eerie. He had thought there were more Raptures than that - then again, he had spent most of his time since waking up severely confused.
“Seems like it,” he said as he stood up, dusting off his uniform.
“It’s a pity about iS-3,” iO-2 continued.
“I had no choice. It was either her, or all of us.” Why did he feel so guilty, then? “Come on. iO-2, iF-1 - if there is no damage to report, it’s time to g-”
Blood. All over his face and eyes.
It took a moment for Yong to realize that a long, thin needle had stabbed through the back of iO-2’s head, coming out of her forehead. She did not emit a sound as her body was dragged down by a long metal tendril.
He was shaken out of his stupor when he felt a tug on his arm, strong enough to pull him to the ground. A shape, black and metallic, emerged from the sand beside him: a Rapture, shaped like a scorpion and nearly as large as him. It had wrapped its disproportionately large tail around his arm to keep him pinned, its bladed sting coiled above him, ready to strike - still dripping with iO-2’s blood and gray matter.
Yong had been right - there really were more Raptures. Simply, some of them had burrowed underground to avoid the collapse.
He stared at the sting in front of him as if hypnotized. He was shocked to find that, in the face of death, he could not think of anything. He had nothing - he was nothing. He had just started to figure out how to be a true Commander, and it would have all been for naught.
A hail of bullets, accompanied by a roar from iF-1, slammed against the side of the scorpion-like Rapture. Sparks flew as it rolled off of Yong, scuttered its blade-like legs in the air as it emitted a distorted screech, then fell limp.
“Commander! Run!” iF-1 shouted before being pinned to the ground by a second Rapture. She emptied a clip of her submachine gun point-blank, but her aim was thrown off by the monster pouncing on top of her; most of the shots missed, and those that didn’t only glanced the Rapture’s outer shell. The Rapture swatted the weapon out of her hand with a flick of its tail, then for good measure stabbed her arm through the wrist, pinning it to the ground. The Nikke screamed, then started banging her fist repeatedly on what would have been the Rapture’s face. The hits seemed to register, but the force behind them was such that it couldn’t go for the killing bite.
Yong watched iF-1 fight for her life, frozen. The sensible thing would have been to do as she said; as a human, and as the Commander, his life was by far the most precious in the squad. He stood up, prepared to run - then his eyes fell on iO-2’s body.
The gaping hole in her forehead stared at him, even deeper than her lifeless blue eye. A hole where her brain should have been.
A human brain.
Being a Commander is all about making decisions.
Yong’s mind screamed to him not to do it, but his body was already moving on its own. He rushed towards the Rapture, jumped, then grabbed its tail with both hands and pulled using all his strength. The metal beast had not anticipated the feeble human to attack it, and so it simply allowed its tail to be pulled out of iF-1’s arm. Yong was thrown backwards, and as he landed he saw that the Rapture’s tail darted towards him like an enraged snake. He was about to instinctively cover his face when a single shot rang out, cutting through the base of the mechanical limb and amputating it.
The rapture hissed, rearing up in what appeared to be pain - and in doing so, allowed iF-1 to move freely. She sprung up, tackling the Rapture to the ground, then grabbed its single red eye, which was flashing in something akin to terror; with a roar of pain and frustration, the Nikke tore out the core, ripping a bundle of nerve-like cables. The Rapture did not emit any sound, simply crumpling in a heap of scrap metal.
Silence fell again, interrupted only by Yong’s own heavy breathing. Did he just… attack a Rapture by himself? Bare-handed ? How the hell was he still alive?
iF-1 looked at him, seemingly sharing his amazement. The injury to her leg was still there, and the one to her arm hadn’t improved things, so she sat there, looking around.
“Right… the shot…” Yong muttered to himself as he stood up. He looked to the right, where the shot that had saved his life had come from. A human figure, clad in dark blue, emerged from behind a rock about a hundred meters away, walking towards him. She - Yong was sure that was a Nikke, a Product 08 to be precise - was carrying a large object on her back. Or… was it a person?
“Thank you,” Yong exclaimed to the Product 08 as she approached. Upon closer inspection, the “thing” she was carrying turned out to be a Product 23 who appeared to be missing her legs. Nevertheless, she waved at him with a big smile on her face, while her carrier remained stoic.
“Are you a Commander?” the Product 08 asked.
“Y… yes. I’m Commander Yong.” That title didn’t sound so strange coming out of his mouth anymore. “I was assigned here with my squad to protect the east flank, but we were ambushed. Only two of us survived…” Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that he had survived and only one of the Nikkes under his command hadn’t been destroyed , but that felt odd to him for some reason. Plus, he was too tired to think about semantics at that moment.
“Hello, Commander Yong!” the Product 23 said from over her companion’s shoulder. “My name is Paz, and this is Misty. She found me on the way here.”
“You were… part of the main force?”
“I’m from Missilis Support Team 01,” the other Nikke said. “My squad was wiped out in an ambush, so I retreated. We managed to contact HQ. It seems the offensive was successful, though at higher losses than expected.”
That was good news… probably. At that moment, Yong found himself unable to care as much as he wanted to. “I see. So you are both without a Commander, then?”
Both Nikkes nodded.
“Then you will be under my command for now - at least until we reach the extraction point. I need all the help I can get in getting out of here. Although…” He looked at iF-1. “My only remaining Nikke can’t walk. You have your hands full, and obviously I can’t carry her. This… is a problem.”
“Oh, I know a thing or two about field repairs,” Paz chirped. “If you have a repair kit, I can help with that.”
“It would make you more useful, at least,” Misty interjected.
“Hey! This is not my fault!” Paz replied, waving at her missing legs. The two continued to bicker as Yong walked away to grab iO-2’s repair kit.
There it was again. The hole, staring at him alongside that glassy blue eye. He found himself unable to avert his eyes from the messy, sickening spectacle. Now, more than anything else, it was the spray of blood pooled around iO-2’s head that obsessed him. It was not the blood itself - he was used to that sight, being the son of a doctor - but where it came from that unsettled him. Human blood from a non-human being.
Non-human… He mulled over the meaning of that word as he grabbed the repair kit, then gave iO-2 one last look before walking towards iF-1, who was waiting to be treated.