Re-Initialize

[The Future Warrior]

Rain.

That was the first word that registered.

The first word that wasn't part of the seemingly endless beeping, whirring drone of internal diagnostics reporting and readouts, at any rate. The first actual word, separate from the massive blocks of code and warning notifications about 'invalid location' this and 'missing parameters' that and 'calibrations inaccurate' this and 'combat functions offline' that. A giant, glaring, headache-inducing mess that most technicians would weep at having to sort through.

But there were no technicians here. There was no one here, at the moment, save for the lone robot half-buried in a mound of rubble. Just staring up at a dull and clouded sky through a misty haze of rain falling through the splintered ceiling of a skeletal building overhead.

Rain.

The word registered again. She knew what it was, of course. Liquid water, condensed into droplets from vapor high in the atmosphere until they were heavy enough to fall under gravity's pull. That was a bit of a scientific and long-winded way to explain it, but it was the one she could recognize and reference offhand. Weather patterns. One of the few things which made sense.

Slowly she shifted, and tried to sit up, forcing aside bits of rubble and debris. Chunks of stone and sand-turned-mud slid and ground this way and that in protest of her efforts, but soon enough gave way and slid aside. First one arm came free, and with it she struggled to dislodge a large chunk to free her other arm. In time it also emerged, with a spatter of mud and water onto her surroundings. And as she worked further to completely extricate herself, more diagnostics and scanning systems were hard at work, buzzing and whirring and beeping and blaring away with all their warnings and readouts and notifications.

A more orderly format, this time, displaying on her own internal readouts. All but the most basic systems were offline; or rather, never actually initialized and started up. Barely through preliminary testing, according to the final report. All basic functions for mental operation, and locomotion were online. She could move and operate, think and act -- a fact she already knew, given her current activities. But anything further or more specialized was stubbornly offline and inactive. Even the extra arms, a feature intended to allow for ease of combat and operation in treacherous terrain, hung limply at her sides. At most she could manage a weak curling of them, fingers clenching into loose fists, but nothing more precise.

There were the emergency re-initialization protocols, of course. In event of emergency, safety overrides could be activated and disabled or offline functions booted up if it would prevent egregious damage or harm to a unit or its objective. That was the readout she inevitably got, after trying to set things to working properly.

Finally rising up to stand, she did what she could to dislodge and brush away the majority of the muck and detritus. "....improbable," she muttered, a synthesized voice just shy of being completely and convincingly realistic. Being able to activate un-initialized functions in emergency was all well and good...though it came with a problem. She had no objective. Nothing to defend, or capture, or protect, or observe, or any such thing. Nothing that could serve as a catalyst for full activation. Thus the chances of ever getting anything working again without being lucky enough to find an appropriate technician or devoting significant time and risk to hacking her own defenses and brute-forcing things online...were slim at best.

Though once all the technical business was settled and her grim prospects were in mind, another thing registered. It registered so suddenly that er expression momentarily went slack, and was replaced with a dull look of pure confusion. "Location unknown..." For almost a full minute, she just stood there in the damp haze of falling rain, before shifting and breaking into a lumbering stride over the uneven, ruined terrain. The building was destroyed, and once had numerous floors which would have made her going much slower had they been intact, but thankfully only around the edges did any trace of them remain.

The doors were gone, though the doorframe still stood. And it was a bit of a squeeze to get through, but with some effort and a worrying amount of cracking and crumbling from the surrounding stone, she was through. Through, and out into the direct path of the downpour. She stood up slowly, reaching up one of her working arms to brush sopping hair out of her face, and turned her eye skyward. "Location unknown......" she repeated again, curiosity covering her words more than confusion or panic now. "...strange."

 

[The Future Warrior]

She stood there in silence, completely still, for what her internal clock registered as being several minutes.

Only at that point did she slowly let her hand drop and fall back to her side, bringing her gaze down to stare out across her surroundings. "Where...am I, then?" With so many systems offline, she couldn't even run such basic things as a scan of the environment or for communication frequencies, to try and find if there was anything remotely familiar within range. All she had was the suite of limited, mimicked-human senses she was equipped with for the most basic of operation. Limited, especially in range and overall functionality, but a drastic improvement over nothing at all.

And so...she did her best. Visually scanning the horizon, as far as her sight retained clarity. Turning this way and that, slowly making a complete circle and getting a general feel for the place. "City. Very old...probably destroyed at some point. Most likely abandoned." Everywhere she could see, nothing but the remains of crumbling and collapsing buildings. Most were overgrown and covered in vines or plant-life, which definitively marked them as 'unusable' but kept them partially standing, even as they tore them further apart. Combined with the distinct lack of any sign of light anywhere, aside from the errant flash of lightning and the dull gray light passing through the clouds, it painted a very clear picture.

"What happened here..." There were definitely places like this in her records. That much she knew. Details about them were scattered and scrambled, though. At best, fragmented and hard to make sense of. At worst, completely jumbled and garbled messes. Must have been one hell of a beating she took, to damage her memory banks so thoroughly as all that. A bit worrying, but delving more deeply into that kind of thing could wait. What she didn't know, at least for the moment, couldn't really hurt her. But worrying about it very well could.

"Unknown location, lack of information...conclusion: dangerous area."

A bit of a leap in logic, perhaps. But by simple virtue of being completely unknown, it was at least a moderate risk. It left only one course of action, that her mind could process and dwindle down to: explore.

Just move. Root around, go and try to find something out there in these ruins that might point toward something significant. Where she might be, whether it was dangerous, directions to somewhere else...she wasn't really sure what, exactly, she was hoping to find. Beyond 'something useful', at any rate.

Not that it was going to prevent her from trying to find it, though. Standing around in one place wasn't going to get her anywhere, but enough aimless wandering and exploring might. One of the benefits of a self-sustaining power core: she could keep going for a long, long time as long as she avoided major damage. She hoped, of course, that it wouldn't take anywhere near that long, long time to find something that would be of use in her current predicament.

 

[The Future Warrior]

It was an odd feeling, to be sure. There was still no sign of anything around, but there was an unsettling feeling lurking in the air. Her internal HUD and scanners weren't online, but she didn't need them to be. There was enough 'human' in her encoded programming to figure out the source of the unease: a feeling of being watched. That little 'animal' instinct, that knew when there was something amiss or danger was hiding close by, even if there weren't any real hints or indications of it that the actual senses could detect. An odd thing for a robot to have the capability for feelings like that, certainly. But that was a necessity; without that sense of danger or risk, they would have been less effective. Just heedlessly walking into any danger or threat, relying solely on logic and numbers.

Effective, but only up to a certain point, and with no defense against the completely unpredictable and illogical.

Ashe knew all that, at some level. There was enough information left in her databanks about the reason for why a 'simple war machine' would need the capacity for 'thoughts, feelings, and worry of death'. that she could piece it all together from the mangled mess of code and garbled words.

So she paid attention. She paid attention more than she had been just moments ago, as she trudged through the misty, rain-shrouded cityscape. Her eye incessantly roved this way and that, rolling slowly from one side to the other and scanning the path in front of her. Every now and then, a light twitch and jerk of her ears, straining to catch any sound beyond the pattering and splashing of rain or her own boots in the puddles and scraping on the wet stone.

A flash of lightning split the sky again, and she finally saw something. Something large -- larger than even she was, which was a worrying prospect -- perched on the crumbled remains of a building. Quadrupedal, and made all of sharp lines and angles and jagged metal. Large, yellow eyes glinted in the momentary glare of the lightning. Then it faded, and with only a blur of movement it was gone.

She was left blinking in surprise. "What...in the world?" She had never encountered anything like that before. She had never even heard of anything like that before. Like some wild animal or giant beast, but one that crawled out of a mad engineer's foundry rather than any normal biological evolution. "Danger levels elevated." She wasn't entirely positive, given only the brief glance she'd gotten of it, but it had looked like a predator. Some kind of large canine or big cat analogue, if such a thing could be rationalized at all. In her current impaired state, the prospect of tangling with something like that was not appealing.

To such an end, her pace picked up and she moved onward. Still on high alert, and now seeking more than ever for something that might lead her somewhere safe. Or at least more safe than wherever this was.

What she instead ended up finding -- or perhaps more accurately, being found by -- was not what she was expecting, or really hoping for...

Beginning of Hidden Power quest prompt as granted here.

Current Word Count: 534

 

[The Future Warrior]

One moment she was simply quickly striding down a muddy river that she could only assume had once been a large road or street of some kind. The chipped and broken remains of its sidewalk still remained, on one side, though the other side was covered in a messy growth of ugly gray-green-brown vines and plant growth. The unsettling sound of shuffling, shifting, chittering and other movement from within made her wisely decide to keep her distance.

it wasn't until she reached the end of the road, so to speak, and was busy hauling herself up out of the nearly knee-high slurry of ruined city juices, she was greeted with the sight of a very wet pair of boots, standing in a shallow puddle some dozen feet ahead. They were, of course, attached to a set of legs, and then an entire person, of roughly human size. Shrouded in a heavy water-slicked raincoat over damp clothes, and sporting what looked like some kind of firearm held loosely in one hand. The sight of it made Ashe just stop, in sheer dumbfounded confusion, staring at them dubiously. Even with the size difference, the fact she was still standing well below the level they were on, not to mention crouching slightly in preparation to spring up and climb out of the muck, left them almost on eye level.

It was several seconds of simple staring at each other, before one broke the silence.

"Evenin'."A man, judging by the sound of his voice. A light shifting, as he re-adjusted his grip on the gun in one hand. Ashe was a poor judge of tone, but he seemed nervous. Or just surprised, maybe.

"....I wasn't aware night was approaching." Ashe just blinked dumbly.

The man looked off to one side, and up over the buildings nearby. "Yeah, well...afternoon, then."

Not exactly one for small talk, Ashe posed the most important question she could at that moment, rather than continuing on with further idle chatter. "You don't intend to shoot me if I finish climbing out of this muck, do you?"

"Eh?" He snapped his gaze back around, leaning forward to peer down over the edge. "Oh, yeah. Nah. Not gonna waste the ammo over something like that." He shrugged and took several slow, measured steps back. "Long as you don't go acting crazy, we're good. If you were gonna be hostile, we wouldn't be talking. Probably."

"I am not an ambush model. I would be very direct if I had hostile intentions, yes." That unnerving statement stated with all the clueless awareness of a child, Ashe simply shifted her hands on the slippery edge of shattered road and hauled herself up. The already damaged stone cracked and splintered at the edges under her weight, and nearly gave way entirely. Several feet of it turned into a craggy slide, or ramp, though it still let her get up and out of the icy mud at least. She heaved herself back up to stand, off her knees and futilely attempted to brush the majority of the mud and muck off of herself.

The man, for his part, staggered back. "Jesus...big one..." he mumbled. His gun-free hand slowly came up, under the hood over his head, and carefully adjusted a pair of goggles over his eyes. The lenses glinted faintly in the dim lighting for a moment, before going dark again. "So, uh...you ain't one of them whatevers that lurk out here, right? Zoids or Akata or whatever?"

Ashe was silent for another minute as she continued to try wiping and swatting away the filth from herself. The time was also spent analyzing and trying to pick through what remained of her memory. "Those designations have no meaning to me. I have no information on them," she finally responded. "I am left to assume that no. I am neither of those entities."

"....real funny way of speaking you got, though," he noted. "But puttin' that aside...might be you can be of some help, if you ain't one of them. Assuming you don't mind doing a little work."

"I am obligated to ascertain the details of any task before agreeing or disagreeing to undertake it." Ashe lifted a hand, covered in mud, and stared at it as the failing rain slowly but surely washed it (relatively) clean again.

"I didn't exactly hear a no, there." He cracked a faint grin. "So. C'mere, this way. Got a little, eh...shelter set up. Out of the rain, at least. Can explain the work in full there."

"...agreeable. Lead on."

Beginning of Hidden Power quest prompt as granted here.

Current Word Count: 534 + 759

 

[The Future Warrior]

The 'shelter', as it turned out, was little more than a small building which was still mostly intact. Aside from the outer wall of one room having collapsed, the rest of the structure was still standing. Dilapidated, molded and reeking of age and neglect, but still standing. All of the exterior windows and doors were boarded up, or so worn over with grime and filth they were entirely opaque. It wasn't much, but it was certainly out of the rain, and a good place to hide from prying eyes.

The man that had lead her there was a bit stumped about how she would actually...fit in, but with some squeezing and a worrying bit of creaking and cracking from the ceiling let her make her way into the collapsed room, at least. Out of the worst of the rain, which was some small relief.

He soon enough revealed himself as one James Smythe. Ashe suspected it wasn't his real name, by any means, but she wasn't going to actually say that. At least not until he had finished explaining himself. He rambled on and on for a great length of time about what he was doing out here, using a lot of roundabout language to say...not very much at all.

"I believe I clearly stated i would need details," Ashe finally spoke up, interrupting him mid-sentence. "By my internal chronometers, you have currently spent seven minutes and approximately thirty-nine seconds carefully avoiding an actual explanation."

The man calling himself Smythe just stalled there, mouth half open and wordlessly sputtering, the verbal equivalent of tossing a fish out of water and onto the muddy bank. It took several seconds for him to regain his composure, with a cough and a quick "W-Well...sorry. Details, right..."

He continued to be evasive and secretive, but concrete information slowly leaked out of him. Cytokine Industries. The fact he was not actually 'here', just using a cheap mechanical doppelganger to do the wandering and exploring in these hostile environs, outside of 'the city'. And that he was here checking on rumors of something very precious supposedly hidden in some obscure locale here in the remnants of this city.

When there was a break in his seemingly endless fountain of speech, Ashe spoke up again. "Am I free to make a guess as to what this work you mentioned before entails?"

"Uh..." He looked taken aback again, and momentarily checked something under one of the sleeves of his coat. "Yeah, sure, I guess?"

"This place is dangerous and even being here in your current state poses some risk. You do not wish to continue your current search." She slowly blinked her large eye, as if in punctuation. "So you seek to find someone else to do it, without worrying about expending resources or wasting time to go back to this city you spoke of and bring further assistance, or send others to do it in your stead."

"....you make it sound so cold and formal when you say it like that." The man sighed. "But...yeah, you're more or less right. This thing might be cheap." And he knocked on his chest, with a hollow metallic thud. "But that don't mean any damage it takes won't come out of my pay to fix or replace. So I'd rather not risk its neck, both on account of my paycheck's sake and because it's...kinda my neck too, long as I'm synced up with it."

"And so you intend to find someone else to do this task for you," Ashe went on.

"Yeah. Pretty much." He shrugged. "Either you find it, and we all walk out of this happier. Or you don't, and I'm still basically at square one and at least have some idea of where it's not at."

"I am left to assume there will be some form of compensation, should I agree to this." Ashe didn't pose it as a question. Just a simple observation. "I am likewise left to assume that I will not be told what it is that I am to be searching for until I agree to go and look for it."

"Pretty smart." Smythe cracked a smirk to that. "Yeah...there'll probably be something in it for ya. Directions to the city, where it's safe, at the very least. Maybe something more valuable, if this turns out to really be what it's supposed to be."

Ashe lapsed into silence, simply staring at the man with an unblinking gaze. Seconds stretched into minutes, making him shift uncomfortably and look away, rubbing his arm nervously.

"....agreeable," she finally stated. "A city of any significant size would be enough benefit in my current state. I will undertake this search for you."

"....fan-friggin-tastic." Smythe laughed joyously. "Alright, so, as to what you'll be looking for..."

Progressing on Hidden Power quest prompt as granted here.

Current Word Count: 534 + 759 + 799

 

[The Future Warrior]

Energon.

That was what the Smythe man had told her that he was supposed to be looking for. He had no hints or real information whatsoever, beyond some things dug up from old records and rumors that there was a huge cache of it, tucked away somewhere out in these ruins. Beyond the general area of 'this part of this city', which frustratingly covered an area of a few hundred square miles, there was no concrete information about its location.

He seemed...strangely desperate to find it, and wouldn't say why aside from it being 'extremely important' that he did. It was a valuable energy source, both monetarily as well as for keeping the city going. She could understand that. But his urgency and evasiveness about why it was so important was...odd.

He had noted a small area he had already scoured, and then offered two things: a simple communicator, to use for the sole purpose of reporting back to him when (or if, as the case may have been) she actually found it. And a scanner, which would detect traces of the Energon and help zero in on it. Then he had simply wished her well, with a painfully obvious air of faux-cheeriness, and hurried her back out into the rain to go get to work. "The sooner you get this done," he had said, "the sooner we can both get the heck out of here."

That had been several hours ago, however. Smythe had not been a large man, given she towered nearly four times his stature. It gave her an edge in one fashion, that she could get around the open areas of the city much quicker thanks to her much larger stride. Her greater height gave a much higher vantage point for looking around and observing things. That was all well and good, she wasn't going to disagree. But it also posed another set of problems. Namely her difficulty with something as simple as fitting into areas designed for more...normal-sized individuals.

The lingering feeling that there was still something hostile lurking out here was also ever-present. She had no real way to defend herself, beyond her own bare hands. She still had her basic skills and combat parameters in place; she knew how to fight and handle herself. The issue was she had been designed to use an entire suite of other skills, sensors and functions which she did not currently have access to. It was a complicated issue.

She would just have to keep holding onto that mysterious and very human feeling of 'hope' that nothing bad really happened. Anyone of the same stature and relative...harmlessness of a 'normal' human, like the man who had roped her into this mess, she was sure she could handle. Anything more than that, especially something like the...whatever it had been, that great mechanical predator, she was all but certain would do to her what an ordinary wolf would to to a hapless human. She wasn't exactly fond of that prospect. She couldn't really 'die', but being dismantled or maimed to the point of shutdown would be essentially the same, without a means to create the usual data backups.

She carefully lumbered over what looked to have once been an apartment building, but was now little more than a large hill of jumbled rubble, she stopped at the crest of it. "Far, far too much ground to cover..." she mumbled, slowly turning her head to scan over her surroundings. "This is not going to be a quick matter."

Progressing on Hidden Power quest prompt as granted here.

Current Word Count: 534 + 759 + 799 + 588

 

[The Future Warrior]

"At least a day of searching. And no traces of anything."

Ashe was not impatient, by any stretch of the imagination. Of all the human-like traits that had been programmed in and gifted to her, impatience was not one of them. But she did get anxious. Anxious and frustrated with a lack of any real and tangible results. Without a map to go off of, she couldn't really guarantee an accurate measure of where she had gone or how far it was, or even how much ground she had actually covered. It was a fair distance, that much she knew; several miles if it was an inch. She was confident that she had a sure enough memory that she would be aware almost immediately if she wandered back into an area she had already checked.

The miracles of technology would very likely see to that.

That, however, was not the biggest issue. The biggest issue was that she had no idea how long it would take to see this search through. Or if there was even anything to actually find, or this was some kind of wild goose chase. It was all a little too convenient, really, just...all but literally stumbling upon someone who just so happened to have need of help on a task which would lead to a reward of some kind.

She could wrap her mind around it, of course; the prospect of mercenary work. She was completely unaffiliated with him or his organization, whatever it was. She was outside of it all. If she failed, it wouldn't reflect badly on him, and beyond the minor loss of some hardware and equipment loaned out, which could likely be written off easily as being simply lost in the apparently very dangerous ruins, it wouldn't be any hassle or issue at all for him even if she failed spectacularly or went and ended up mangled and dead.

And on the flip side of all that, even if she was successful and managed to locate this store of Energon...then he would still get credit for his task being done, and for bringing another useful figure into the fold, upon which more future work could likely be foisted off on to continue the trend of 'zero-risk' work. The loss of an outsider doing mercenary work was often only any kind of impact in the short term, as they were usually very easily replaced.

It made a certain kind of sense. For all she knew, the odd man had been aware of her from the beginning, since she first woke up in the ruins. Possibly before that, even. Maybe he had written her off as one of those strange 'zoids' or 'akata' he had mentioned -- he had been extremely vague and horribly non-descriptive of what they were, even when she tried to ask, beyond 'giant murder robots' and 'spooky ass shadow demon-things', in a very frustrating dismissal of her curiosity -- and simply decided to hide from what might be a threat.

Certainly, it was a sound and logical enough idea. The only oddity of it all was his sudden, brazen approach. There was the fact that his timing for doing so had left her wholly vulnerable, and made her head a level target for whatever firepower that gun he had been holding could muster. Small-arms fire like that normally wouldn't phase her, but she had checked in after the fact to find that among all her offline systems...the power routing for her defensive matrix and self-repair systems were among them. Which meant she was at serious risk of major, lasting damage until she could get those online again.

It went without saying that she had discovered her top priority, once she had the means to try and brute-force some of her internal systems and functions into activity again. Such functions as simply restoring the power-routing could likely be kick-started by a strong enough power surge. The idea of trying to attract a lightning strike to see if it might work for such a thing was tempting...but something she wrote off as a poor choice. Such a chaotic strike would do more harm than good, and potentially cause system overload or shutdowns in other parts of her already damaged systems.

Sometimes logic and ingrained information was...such a hassle. It made experimentation far more difficult when you could accurately predict and assess the risks.

Progressing on Hidden Power quest prompt as granted here.

Current Word Count: 534 + 759 + 799 + 588 + 730

 

[The Future Warrior]

In an effort to expedite the process of this aimless wandering, Ashe was now undertaking a moderate risk. That risk had placed her currently several stories above street level, and slowly scaling the side of a mostly still standing building. It leaned slightly to one side, and large chunks of it had fallen out and crumbled away to be overtaken with masses of vines and creeping, gargantuan strands of ivy. But it still stood, more or less intact, to a height above most everything else in the near vicinity. "From a height such as this...it should be possible to perform a scan of a larger area."

From the vantage point she would gain at the top of this building, it would hopefully be limited only be the range of the scanner she had been temporarily gifted. If there were other issues...well, at least she would have a clear point to get a better look around visually.

Of course, even this plan was not without its flaws. As her fingers closed around the cracked ledge which had once been a window, one of those flaws was uncomfortably illustrated as the stone splintered, several chunks of it ripping loose and clattering down toward the streets below. It left her dangling there precariously, one leg still managing to keep purchase on a lower window, and her other free hand desperately clutching at a tangle of vines to keep from falling.

A cascade of shards of brickwork and dust quickly turned into mud joined the ongoing hazy drizzle, tumbling down onto and past her as she hung there. Panic hadn't set in, but she was still being cautious. Reacting too quickly and suddenly could cause more harm than good in such a precarious situation as this one. She remained still until all noise of the cracking and crumbling slowly abated, before again reaching up with her free-hanging hand and grasping at the freshly-broken window ledge. "A fall from this height...would likely have caused some non-insignificant damage." was her only observation as she resumed her slow, steady climb.

She was thankfully most of the way up, and after only another few minutes her hands found the edge of the topmost standing floor, and with great care she levered herself slowly up onto it. She had no need to stop and rest, or even catch her breath like a living being might have done after such an ordeal, so simple hauled herself fully up and onto the floor and stood up immediately. The worn stone and metal groaned and squeaked underfoot in a way that immediately made her concerned and nervous abut falling through.These structures were made for beings significantly lighter than she was, she was positive.

The floor actually did buckle and sag under her weight, but after a few seconds of groaning and squealing metal...it held. For how long it would continue to hold, she couldn't be sure. So she would make sure to be quick. Turning back around to face out over the edge, she pulled the scanner from where it had been tucked away into her tunic and brought it up.

It had been designed for users much smaller than her, and so its interface was frustratingly difficult to manage. But aside from that, once it was actually working it was a purely visual matter, and she could see it well enough. A double-sweeping, thorough scan of the surrounding areas eventually revealed....something. It was faint, and quite a ways away. Probably underground, from the relative weakness and distortion of the signal. But it was a positive response and registered clearly as energon readings.

"....direction confirmed," she murmured, slowly lowering the scanner and fumbling about to deactivate it again. "New course...approach to gain clearer intel and pinpoint target." At times like this, she rather wished her other arms were working properly. At least then she could have one spare to work the communicator and contact the Smythe-man again during the climb back down, and let him know she had found something.

"...my defensive matrix being online would be even better." As she peered over the edge, down toward the ground, she frowned. "I could just...jump down from here, without risk of any significant damage." The equivalent of humans suffering a few bruises, or sore muscles from absorbing the impact. But without some mitigating forces in her internal systems...it would be much more like a human shattering everything in their legs, to try and make a jump down from here.

"Climbing it is."

Progressing on Hidden Power quest prompt as granted here.

Current Word Count: 534 + 759 + 799 + 588 + 730 + 750

 

[The Future Warrior]

The climb down took less time than the ascent, thankfully. Not a large amount, but even a few seconds less spent trusting her weight to a structure already falling apart was a few seconds she wouldn't dismiss lightly. Back on mostly solid ground, she lightly dusted herself off and turned to face the direction of the signal she'd picked up. "There was no rangefinder to give a concrete distance...but I should recognize the structures in the area when I get closer." Speaking aloud was something that was supposed to help you focus on things or think them through. Somewhat irrelevant, with the speed her mechanical mind could work, but...

Was it even possible to pre-program in a habit? Strange.

She shook it off and simply headed off. Even without a rangefinder, she could make a few simple guesses based on elevation and the way distant buildings looked that it was probably in the order of several dozen miles. Virtually on the other side of this large chunk of ruined city that had been noted as being 'where the energon probably was'. It was frustrating to find it so far away, unquestionably. But far less so than the inevitable days or possible weeks of aimless wandering and scanning which might have faced her otherwise had she not opted to climb and scan a large portion of the city.

"Time to get underway..."

The problem now was actually making it there, of course. The shortest path would be a straight one, but that would lead right through the most ruined part of the city, where there was almost nothing in the way of anything standing, building-wise. A more circuitous route would circumvent that, going around the worst of the rubble and wreckage, but would nearly double the length of the trip...

She lurched into motion, moving forward while fishing out the communicator she'd been given. Perhaps some advice from a second party would be of use in this situation. Getting it working was tedious, again due to the simple size discrepancy between her and the individuals something like this was meant for. But it was simple enough to get working, and turned out to be...an almost amusingly high-tech and advanced version of a simple two-way radio. Only meant to get in touch with another specific point, but with all manner of other functions tucked away in it. Some kind of monitoring or tracking system was among them, Ashe was all but certain.

"....Smythe." She spoke quietly, once she had gotten it working. "I believe I have located the...objective. Or at least a signal regarding it. I am moving closer to investigate now."

"Well, that's great, big girl," the man's voice crackled back over the radio. High-tech or not, it still had that charmingly rustic crackle and pop of mild static. "Where's it at?"

"That is what I am going to confirm. The signal was weak. Likely underground." She paused for a moment to pick her way over a mess of rusted and all but shattered vehicle wreckage. "I am at an impasse, however. As to the route I should take."

"Underground, huh..." He seemed displeased at not getting a straight answer, if his tone was any judge. "Yeah...guess that tracks. Not like it'd just be laying around somewhere up top, or it would've been found by now." There was the sound of rustling, as of cloth or paper if she had to guess. "So what's your issue, then? Don't know how to get where you're headed or something?"

"Negative. I have enough memory and orientation to not lose track of which direction it is in, or the nearby buildings to know when I have found the area. The issue at hand, however..." And she explained the problem. A messy, risky path which could possibly be quicker. Or a longer route, that would drag things out but be less likely to blunder right into trouble.

"Uh-huh...yeah. I can see how that's a bit of a pickle." He didn't sound particularly interested in it at all, or like he even viewed it as much of a problem. "Honestly...if you went the short route, no telling what you'd run into. All that rubble and wreckage is prime hiding places for who knows what, not to mention all the pitfalls. Long route...still might run into things hiding in the buildings, or plants creeping in from the city edges, but probably still safer bet."

"The long but safer path it is, then." She lapsed into silence as she strode forward, until coming to a stop at an intersection among the old city streets. "Thank you for your assistance and insight. I will contact you again, when I have reached the location."

"Yeah, yeah. Sure thing, whatever." The displeasure in his tone had evolved into full on disinterest. "Be safe out there, now. Can't have anything happen to you before you find our prize, right?" He laughed softly.

"....agreed." And she cut the connection, lowering the communicator and staring at it with a half-lidded eye. "I begin to suspect that man may just be using me for his own gain...I do not like that idea." She simply stored the radio away in a pocket. "But I have little other choice, lest I wish to risk a potential eternity of aimless wandering to try and find civilization."

She briefly turned her eye skyward, taking in the ever-present haze of clouds and misty rainfall. It had lessened and slackened since her awakening, but showed no signs of actually stopping. She shook her head and lowered her gaze again, before getting underway once more.

Progressing on Hidden Power quest prompt as granted here.

Current Word Count: 534 + 759 + 799 + 588 + 730 + 750 + 943

 

[The Future Warrior]

The indeterminate nature of just how far she was headed was already beginning to wear on Ashe, after only a few hours. She knew where she was going, but with no real map or coordinates or even directions to follow it was only a vague guess as to how much longer. Well over a hundred miles at her best guess, and even at her larger-than-life pace -- every one of her strides being the equal of four or five for someone of human size -- likely to take well more than a day. Possibly closer to two days, even with her tireless nature.

Frustrating.

This was of course not even bothering to take into account the need to go somewhat slower than full steam ahead, to keep alert and look out for anything dangerous hiding among the ruins. Whether that be some sort of hostile creature or just unsteady terrain waiting to send an unlucky wanderer right into a nasty tumble.

Even more frustrating.

....but necessary.

She had been given no real time limit for this task, thankfully. Being rushed or forced to try and finish this business in a given timeframe would have made it worry-inducing and filled with anxiety at best, and make her extremely angry at worst. The relative simplicity and open-ended limit of the objective at hand eased everything nicely.

At least for now.

Progressing on Hidden Power quest prompt as granted here.

Current Word Count: 534 + 759 + 799 + 588 + 730 + 750 + 943 + 227

 

[The Future Warrior]

By the readings on her internal clocks...it had been about a day. The rain had finally slackened and let up, leaving only a chilly mist blanketing the city in its place. The constant sound of rainfall being replaced with only the silence and faint sound of wind whining through the ruins gave things an unsettling, eerie feel.

Ashe didn't exactly grasp the feeling of fear, per se. She understood the concept, and the basic general reactions most would have to it. But she didn't exactly comprehend how it would feel herself. She could only guess, and her current guess left her feeling short of actual fear. Anxious and nervous, certainly. She could tell that from the way she was constantly turning this way and that, looking from side to side and scanning everything in front of her as she went.

In rarer moments, she even slowed her pace to turn and walk backwards for a few paces, scanning the area behind her.

She never really saw anything clearly. The misty blankets which had replaced the curtains of rain were even more opaque and difficult to see through. They were only slowly shifting and swirling in the wind, rather than constantly pouring down and splashing every which way, but... That didn't exactly make it easier to see through. Easier to spot something moving within it -- which she was positive she did, on numerous occasions -- but that only served to slowly escalate her uncertainty and the feeling of nervousness building in her head.

She knew that in times of stress, humans and other organic creatures were prone to things called hallucinations. Seeing or hearing things that weren't actually there, or even simply imagining such things. Whether that was something which had been -- or even could be -- programmed into her, or any of her model line, was completely beyond her. It seemed like something that would be incredibly inefficient and ill-advised, simply from an effectiveness viewpoint. She was no real engineer or scientist or anything, but...

"This is stupid..."

She frowned deeply, her large eye narrowing. "This is not the subject I should be dwelling upon...why am I focusing on it so intently?"

Because she had nothing else to occupy her mind, was what she eventually decided. Until she reached her destination, there was little else to do except keep moving and continue to watch and be alert for danger.

...and try to figure out what the unsettling glimpses of things moving around in the fog out there were. They looked very much like whatever the large mechanical beast she had seen shortly after awakening. Some kind of....massive wolves or other similar predator. Things she did not relish the prospect of having to contend or deal with. She had heard stories of even healthy, aware humans failing to contend with normal wolves, or being seriously wounded and unable to cope with injuries sustained. If these were a direct analogue, save for the mechanical composition and greater size in the same way she was more or less a direct analogue to a human...

"Perhaps I should work to restore my backup functionality first, rather than self-repair systems..." she murmured. "As some form of...insurance." Ideally, of course, there would be no need for it. But what was that human saying...?

Better safe than sorry.

Progressing on Hidden Power quest prompt as granted here.

Current Word Count: 534 + 759 + 799 + 588 + 730 + 750 + 943 + 227 + 553

 

[The Future Warrior]

"....here, I think."

She came to a halt in front of what looked like a gate of some sort. Large and metallic, heavily rusted but still standing. It and the wall it was part of were a few feet shorter than she was, so it didn't stop her from seeing past, into the compound beyond. It was...especially decayed and ruined within, the sprawling grounds covered in a devastating array of ruined vehicles and equipment, and tangled masses of vines and creeping plants which almost seemed to have been unnaturally eager to swoop in and reclaim this place for themselves.

She fished out the scanner again, slowly activating it and bringing it up to eye level to look over the place, and...

"Confirmed. Signal is here." There it was, clear as day from this distance, even if it was still surprisingly weak and faint. Emanating from one of the buildings ahead, near to the center of the complex. "Structural damage likely...collapsed floors possible. Energy readings filtering out of underground containment." She lowered the scanner, peering ahead through the haze. She could make out the outline of the building through the misty clouds, but nothing more. She traded the scanner for the communicator as she backed a few paces away from the walls, sending out a message to Smythe again.

"....Jason Smythe. I have further information to report." Her words were soft, but still as flat as ever. She was already anticipating the usual games and disinterest of the last few conversations.

"....hey, hey. Been a couple days, thought I'd lost you out there." Just as expected, his tone was filled with faux-cheeriness and surprise. "Good news this time, I hope. What's up?"

"I have reached the source of the signals I saw before." She heard him start to speak, but just continued on at her same even, relaxed tone without paying him any heed. "It is situated in a walled-off compound. My memory is damaged, but it seems consistent with the layout of a standard, small military base. My suspicions have grown that the readings come from underground, and will be proceeding further to investigate and confirm."

"Wha-hey, hey, hold on now, don't do anything rash!" For a fleeting moment, the flippant and disinterested tone dropped from Smythe's words. "Listen, that stuff is dangerous to go messing around with if you aren't careful. Go investigate or whatever, but don't actually touch it or anything if it is there, alright? I'm sending some updated data to the scanner now, which should confirm if it's the cache I was looking for. Get back to me if it's a positive result."

"....understood. Am I to assume that the structural integrity of this location is not a priority matter, so long as it does not cause risk of damage to the sought objective?"

She could hear the sharp intake of breath, and the noise of quick shuffling steps through liquid. Probably pacing among the puddles outside, by her best guess. "....yeah. That's fine. Break or smash it up or whatever you need to do. Just get in there, make the scan, and don't cause any damage to the energon."

"Affirmative. I shall be in touch again soon." And without waiting for further response, she cut the signal again. She shoved the communicator away, into her pocket again, and then stepped back up to the gate. "I still do not like that man." She placed two hands atop the wall, leaning forward and drawing one leg back before swinging forward with a kick to drive her heel into the rusted metal. The noise of it made her flinch, like thunder going off in the sudden silence. But it crumpled the weakened metal heavily, and a second such blow send it crashing down off its railings. "Had this been in better shape, it would have been far more irritating to gain entrance..." she noted, carefully ducking down and through the now open gate.

"I suppose there are some reasons to be grateful for time eroding things."

Progressing on Hidden Power quest prompt as granted here.

Current Word Count: 534 + 759 + 799 + 588 + 730 + 750 + 943 + 227 + 553 + 675

 

[The Future Warrior]

Inside the strange walled-off compound, Ashe slowly picked her way across the grounds. Carefully placing each step down onto the few secure patches of ground. Most of it was just seas of mud and ruptured concrete, waiting for someone to step into what was only barely less than a deathtrap. The carpeting of greenish-grown plants, creating a hazy spiderweb over much of the area, only further complicated matters. The swirling fog made it a constant risk, whether that next patch of tangled plants would have solid ground underfoot or be spanning a foot deep crack in the earth.

Barely more than a stumbling block for her, but a stumble might be all that was needed to send her toppling over into some other danger. The mangled remains of vehicles, however rickety and full of rust, would still skewer her just as effectively as any knife if she landed on one wrong.

"I am left to question why the designers chose such a realistic flesh-like substance rather than actual armor plating..." Ashe muttered, peering down at one of her arms. The pale, lightly tanned synth-skin there certainly looked realistic...virtually indistinguishable from the genuine, human article, the reports and information she still had available in her battered memory said. "Utterly realistic...and every bit as vulnerable, too. Relying on energy fields and defensive matrices for defense rather than actual armor..." It made a small amount of sense. Her line had been specifically intended to work alongside normal soldiers and combatants, and were meant to be capable of bonding with them like the rest of their comrades.

A dubious plan, if ever she had considered one. Not that she ever had, as the past few days were her only logged records of activity and considering anything. But still, she though, her point stood. It was a strange decision. If they were meant to be expendable and replaceable heavy weapons bearers and shock troops, why give them the capacity to share similarities and bond with the regular humans and living soldiers they were fighting with?

Puzzling. Frustrating. Nonsensical.

"....this is stupid." She echoed her exact words, and tone, from the previous day. Getting lost in idle wondering again was unacceptable. Especially now, when there was environmental danger lurking underfoot with every step.

"I will have to run further diagnostics and perform a full systems check after this task is finished... I think my self-reflection and philosophical functions are receiving an over-abundance of runtime."

Progressing on Hidden Power quest prompt as granted here.

Current Word Count: 534 + 759 + 799 + 588 + 730 + 750 + 943 + 227 + 553 + 675 + 409

 

[The Future Warrior]

Progress across the grounds to the suspect building was time-consuming and frustrating, but not overly difficult. A few bits of backtracking when a dead end of potholes and broken ground was reached, but all in all only twenty minutes of wasted time. That was when she reached the next obstacle in her path, however...the building itself.

It was, like everything else here, designed for human-sized creatures. The ceilings on each floor were rather high, and if she was to carefully crawl on hands and knees...she could fit inside without much trouble. She needed to watch out to not smack her head into the leftovers of any ceiling lights, or anything from higher floors hanging down, but it was only a minor inconvenience at best. The bigger issue was the darkness.

This building was ragged and run-down on the outside, but amazingly was still sound structurally. All of its walls, though some might be crumbling and have chunks missing, still stood. Doors and windows were still in one piece, most of them heavily shuttered and barred with metal plating. There was virtually nothing in the way of light getting into the building, beyond the gray and misty luminescence filtering weakly in through the lone open doors Ashe was forced to squeeze in through.

"This will complicate things..." She had perhaps a foot of clearance between her back and the ceiling when crawling her way through. Her head was precariously close, constantly brushing against the roof, and her unruly mop of by now extremely tangled hair continually snagged and got caught on some jagged piece of this or that. Not being able to see them in the dark, beyond the most vague of outlines courtesy of her faintly glowing eye, left her pace slowed to a...well, very literal crawl.

Only slightly less than blindly she felt her way forward, crawling slowly along. She was mostly worried about floor damage, and suddenly toppling into a gaping pit or hole. There was no telling how far she would end up tumbling down if she did.

It was only after nearly an hour of this slow plodding crawl that she felt the ceiling above her draw back. A hole in the floor above, providing enough room for her to sit up at the least. She had no soreness or tiredness to work out, but took the chance regardless. It was much easier to reach things, and manage using the scanner again, when not restricted to being on her knees in such an awkward and cramped place. The scanner turned out to have limited nightvision, casting the interior through its viewer into stark shades of blue, and gray in something near monotone. It turned out that she had made it to a four-way intersection. One path had been blocked off by the collapsing ceiling, leaving only two others. A long worn away sign on one wall had once provided directions, it seemed.

...but she had her own directions. The scanner again picked up readings of energon, pointing down the hall to her left. This close, they were strong and clear, even being detected certainly as coming from below ground. "More difficulties...I can only hope there is a means of reaching whatever place it is locked away in."

With a few moments to carefully scan and look over the hallway through the scanner to get some idea of any dangers, she again put it away and resumed her slow crawl onward. She was almost there, now...almost there.

Progressing on Hidden Power quest prompt as granted here.

Current Word Count: 534 + 759 + 799 + 588 + 730 + 750 + 943 + 227 + 553 + 675 + 409 + 580

 

[The Future Warrior]

Slowly worming her way through the hallways in all but complete darkness was not a pleasant experience. She could, thankfully, simply file it away and mostly forget about it once this was done. Avoid any chance of some sort of 'traumatic memory' experience, like she had been informed some humans might experience. A blessing, in a certain sense of the word, but just another layer of separation between herself -- and her entire model line, she assumed -- and the humans she was created by and to serve alongside.

A glaring oddity, that they were so mentally distinct and alien, when they had tried to make them so physically familiar and relatable. But it was a puzzle she could save for later, when she was out in the open again and not suffering from such infuriating restrictions.

The trail of the energon readings lead her onward, down one hallway and around corners. And eventually to a set of large, sturdy doors. Security doors, from the look of them. "Once held shut by an electronic lock, I believe..." The work of trying to shift around so that she could get her legs toward the door was awkward and took nearly a full minute, but she managed it after no small amount of struggle. "...thankfully, the power should be out, which means..."

Both of her boots impacted the door with a heavy, reverberating crash. The first hit did little more than make a minor dent. But a second, third, and finally fourth impact, driving as much of her weight into each one as she could with such cramped conditions and little leverage, finally met with success. The comparatively flimsy security latch gave way under the force, and the doors flew open, nearly embedding themselves into the walls from the force behind their opening.

When it was done she just went still for a moment, laying back and flat against the floor. And listened. That had been a lot of noise, and if there was anything else hiding in this place it would be all but impossible not to notice it.

Only after several minutes of waiting and hearing nothing did she begin to move again, slowly rolling herself over and working into turning around again to start crawling forward. The hallway beyond the security doors was wider, but with an even lower ceiling, forcing her to nearly drop entirely prone, onto her stomach, and slowly inch forward along the passage. "Such confines...would make for an incredibly uncomfortable situation for living beings," she muttered. "Perhaps in that respect it is a blessing after all the minds of my model line were programmed in such a detached manner."

It took nearly half an hour of slow crawling along, with the hallway sloping downward and curving around until she was sure it had made a complete u-turn, likely leading back under the building itself, until finally reaching another set of doors. They were all but identical to the ones above, though frustratingly...in much better condition. Aside from a coating of dust, they looked almost untouched by time, and still remarkably sturdy. "....this may pose a problem."

She carefully reached out an arm to rest one palm against the doors and pushed. There was a light shifting, and only the mechanical security latch resisted. "Electronic locks, again..." She narrowed her eye. "If my strengthening systems were online, I could break through this even in this absurdly limited position..."

But as it was, her chances of breaking through were all but nonexistent without spending hours pounding away at the doors. She had nothing as far as leverage, and couldn't bring any of her weight to bear against the doors. The only option she could see here was...not a favorable one. But after a minute or so of processing and mulling it over...she gave in.

Slowly, ever so slowly, and with much difficulty, she began to work at getting herself turned around again. Only the width of the hallway here gave her any chance at all, though it was still the comical equivalent of a twenty-seven point turn to get herself turned around and her legs toward the door.

"Here goes nothing..." Bracing herself against the curved wall as best she could, she pushed back and thrust her boots toward the door. A heavy thump, muffled by dust and the suffocating silence down here, echoed back up the hall. She repeated, again and again, striking the door with all the force she could muster in the cramped confines and with her awkward positioning. Minutes of effort passed...before finally, finally there was the sound of tearing, snapping metal and the frustratingly sturdy latch broke loose as the doors flew open.

"Ah...excellent...I was nearly ready to give up and try another approach."

She slowly worked forward to inch through the doors. Crawling not only backward, but on her back as well, was difficult at the best of times, let alone in such a confined space. Squeezing through the doors and into the room beyond...she was rather surprised to see that there was actually enough room for her to sit up. And as she did so, and peered around, there was a surprising quantity of things to be seen.

"Underground storage...old weapons and equipment." She slowly rose up to sit, and then shifted into a crouch. Virtually on her knees, but still leagues better than crawling. And she crept forward, fishing the scanner out again and getting it running before giving the chamber a quick once-over. "....signal located. Readings are...100% positive."

She pocketed the scanner, and felt around for the communicator. "Jason Smythe." She spoke quietly and slowly, in spite of her urgency to be done with this entire mess. "I have found it."

His response was immediate, and filled excitement. Genuine, this time. "No shit?! You're actually there with it?"

"Correct. It was in an underground storage facility. Behind several reinforced security doors." She paused for a moment, just listening to the excited and frantic breathing and sounds of quick movement. "If this place was still powered, it would have been all but impossible for me to reach this place. Will you be able to make it here?"

Her question was answered by a flash if pale green light, which would have been utterly blinding for a living creature, she was certain. "In a manner of speaking, I guess you could say," drawled the voice of Smythe as the communicator signal cut out. "Looks like ya did a good job. Wasn't really sure if I could count on you or not, a first...or if you were just some clever new type of whatever out there trying to wrangle information out of me."

Ashe just slowly lowered down to a sitting posture, staring at the man with a half-lidded eye. "And you are now certain that is not the case?"

"Well...if it was, I'm pretty damn sure you wouldn't have actually radioed in that you actually found this stuff." He shrugged. "Or maybe that is the case, and you're playing the long game. Not like I actually got anything worthwhile to tell, and you'll get taken apart hard back in the city if you try and start any real trouble."

"....so another case in which you lose nothing by trusting me, then." She could only stare blankly, even as a smile that must have looked utterly exhausted slowly crawled onto her face. "Very shrewd, mister Smythe. Though I suspect your superiors require a certain level of that."

"Maybe. Maybe not." He pulled out some kind of datapad from an internal pocket of his coat. "Regardless...you ready to get the hell out of here? I promised you directions to the city. Well...got authorized to do one better, and just hit a teleport ride straight there, with the energon." He tapped a few buttons. "Transporting it manually would be too risky. Forget about even getting it out of here any other way."

"....understandable. It would be difficult to get out of this place. And i suspect it may be volatile, in some fashion."

"Something like that." He laughed. "Let's get the fuck gone, then." And he pulled up his communicator again. "....yeah. Yeah. This is R'casto. We're good. Cargo secure. You got the coordinates?" He waited for a moment. "Yep. Flash us out whenever you're good."

"Such strange terminology," Ashe commented.

And that was all she had time for before her vision was filled with green light, and the dank interior of the storage facility was gone.

Finishing Hidden Power quest prompt as granted here.

Current Word Count: 534 + 759 + 799 + 588 + 730 + 750 + 943 + 227 + 553 + 675 + 409 + 580 + 1,415