un: unitA2 (voice)

[abandonware]

[The voice that filters through has the gruff, raspy edge of someone who hasn't spoken in a while.]

I need intel on the monsters on the outskirts. I'll kill them in exchange.

[After a moment:] There's something else that I need. A cloak. It needs to - [an irritated sigh, and in a mutter:] how do I explain this - to be able to offset high temperatures. A heat sink. It'll increase my functionality.

I can do something in return. That's all.

Comments

voice; un: ushiromiya

[entreats]

The monsters out there are pretty varied.

[ Not that Ange has much combat experience when it comes to those - but she's observed them a lot, so she's pretty sure she has information that can be just as valuable as real experience.

Besides, she doesn't ever mind offering up information. She wouldn't even need A2 to kill them in exchange. ]

What kind of information about them exactly are you looking for?

[abandonware]

It'll be interesting to fight them.

Tactics and strategy. Best ways to neutralize. Activity and habits.

[entreats]

.. interesting?

[ That seems to give the girl some pause. She doesn't seem super startled or anything, but-- almost something closer to interested. ]

In what sort of way? Do you just like fighting?

[abandonware]

I'm designed to fight. [Notably, she avoids remarking on if she likes it or not. A2 hears the interest though doesn't comment on it. There seemed to be no shortage of people here who found her request unusual.] I've never fought monsters before. It's useful data.

[entreats]

[ Designed, huh.

Ange had been feeling less and less human back home too for various reasons - but in a different way than this, she thinks. It's kind of hard to wrap her head around the idea that some beings are just.. designed for something. That they're stuck with that, even when they find themselves in a different place entirely. ]

I guess it can't hurt. Usually the monsters aren't trouble for people unless they leave town, but a while ago they did all suddenly invade the city. The less there are around, the less of a problem it is, right?

[ ... ]

Most of them seem pretty.. simple though, if that makes sense. If you're used to fighting, I'm not sure it'll be much of a challenge for you. The monsters aren't really all that smart.

[abandonware]

I've heard. [Her tone doesn't change much, though she does seem dimly disappointed.]

It's fine. If it's useful to get rid of them, then that's all I need.

[entreats]

.. this might be a strange question.

[ At least Ange likes A2 enough to give that disclaimer first. There are a whole lot of people she would have been more blunt with, but A2 seems to have her head right on her shoulders, and Ange appreciates that. ]

But is that what you want? To feel useful?

[abandonware]

[A strange question indeed. A2 frowns at it.] I'm an android. [She says, as if to explain. Then, clarifying:] I'm supposed to be useful. I'm not gonna just sit around.

[entreats]

[ There's a slight pause. Ange isn't sure if she should bring up this one since it might be raining on A2's parade here, but she also wants to be honest with the other. Just so A2 doesn't get the wrong expectations. ]

I mean, technically you could debate how useful this will be in the long run. Even when people kill monsters around here, it seems like they're just replaced by new ones. It's entirely possible that the system behind this place is just spawning an infinite number of monsters around town to keep the supply going.

[ Like a MMORPG, Ange would say, but-- alas, that kind of pop culture knowledge is beyond her.

Instead she has to say a more nerdy thing, like: ]

It's like Sisyphus rolling the boulder up on the mountain, you know?

[abandonware]

[Silence follows Ange's explanation. It goes on so long that it seems A2 has dropped the conversation entirely.

Finally, her tone flat, she asks:]

How long has this been happening?

[A year? Two hundred years? Centuries? Eons? She thinks of the mindless grinding cycle of death she'd somehow escaped from and wonders: was this another version of it?

Luckily, this paranoid train of thought is slowed by another curiosity.]

A Sisy-what?

[entreats]

Sisyphus. It's an old story where I come from about a guy who pissed off some gods so bad that they imprisoned him in hell to a fate of having to roll a boulder up a hill, only for the boulder to roll back down every single time he's about to reach the top. [ Pause. ] It's metaphorical.

[ The way Ange meant it just now, she means. Before A2 starts thinking about that one a little too hard..

Especially when she doesn't feel like it's the more important one of the two questions she's asking, in Ange's opinion. ]

As for how long it's been-- As far as I know, the first ones of our group arrived here close to two years ago. But considering that this is apparently the fifteenth cycle this place is going through, there likely have been fourteen cycles of unknown length before this one. Even if you just use the almost two years we've been here, that would mean 28 years or more. Likely more.

[abandonware]

...

I see.

[Not so metaphorical for her. A2 decides to look into this "Sisyphus" when she has the opportunity.

In any case... 28 years is not long for an android, perhaps. But for humanity... she wonders if this includes resets. Memory wipes were common among YoRHa units who got too close to the reality of things, but were still deemed useful.

9S...]

Why? What's the point of this?

[entreats]

[ Ange lets out a slow sigh. ]

That's the question, isn't it? It's what I have also been trying to figure out ever since I found myself here. [ Which has been a long time, and yet she doesn't really have any answers for A2. If she had, she would have been sharing them. ]

At first I assumed this situation is like my own world. There are powerful beings there that love trapping other people in places to play deadly games with them. That doesn't sound too different from our current situation, right? [ .. a pause, and then a smaller sigh as Ange adds: ] But at this point.. I'm not so sure anymore.

[abandonware]

It sounds like...

[An uneasy sigh.]

A test. [...] A program. Maybe it's working out the bugs. The program's evolving. But the function won't change.

[...]

Where I'm from, there was a war that never ended. It was a program too.

[entreats]

.. a war that was a program?

[ Though the girl sounds a little bit confused, there's more to it than that. She can kind of get a faint idea of it because of what this place is like, but it's still slightly difficult for her to imagine.

But that's what the extra layer is. Curiosity. She sounds like she wants to know more about this. ]

How did that work?

[abandonware]

It's hard to explain.

[She'd never had to explain it.] There's been war for thousands of years. All of it is for the fate of Earth. An alien force arrived to conquer Earth, and created machines to combat humanity.

But... the machines killed their masters. They killed the aliens, and they started the program. We — the androids, we were created by humanity to protect Earth and — and the humans who fled to the moon.

But none of us had ever seen humanity. The more the machines fought, the more they learned. And every battle we had, we'd learn more too. But it never ended. It repeats itself. We wipe each other out. And we start over.

[Her voice has grown softer throughout this. Now that she'd spoken the words aloud, it felt more real.]

[entreats]

[ Ange is used to ridiculous, really. She always feels a little ridiculous whenever she has to explain her own situation back home, considering that also seems to be something that's difficult for other people to ever fully grasp.

But this seems to be something like it. The more she listens to A2, the more it feels like something.. distant. Something so strange that she hardly can even imagine it. ]

But that's so.. senseless. [ The girl slowly speaks, slowly starts. She doesn't sound full on horrified, but there's definitely more emotion in Ange's tone than there usually is. ] There isn't even anything being fought for anymore at that point, is there..?