Two Days Before Arriving at Kaza Village
My companion, now named V, and I were able to successfully escape the pursuit of my murder thirsty brethren.
We traveled on a direct course towards Kaza Village--the place V determined would be safe. My battle group N-502 formed a protective layer around me as we advanced. V couldn't provide any detailed description on the abilities of each Legion unit under my command because that information required access to the Legion's main network. The same network we got banned from after being branded a traitor and enemy. Thus, we can't access any Legion related details that's not already uploaded to my database. My database, as described by V, was barren of any useful information regarding the inner workings of the Legion and the current status of the war that's supposedly happening. I knew the Legion were fighting something, but I wasn't sure what.
Our little group of misfits had four different unit types in total, all of which I could clearly distinguish by their unique design; Ameise were the scouts; Löwe were the main battle tanks; Grauwolf were the tank destroyers; and Dinosauria were the artillery/heavy tanks. My only complaint was why the hell did the Legion give vehicle rocket launchers, the same one with little armor, melee weapons? Isn't it counterproductive that the guy holding the rocket launcher also has knives that it can't use unless it suicide charges at the enemy while carrying said high explosives with little protection?
On a separate note, the reason why the Battle Group N-502 Legion units didn't outright try to murder me was because, as explained by V, they were connected to my 'local' network instead of the Legion's main network system. Thus, once I was disconnected and branded as a traitor, so were they.
Besides these small tidbits of info, I was clueless of everything else going on in this world. Though, one thing was for sure, this was not a fantasy world of magic. The lack of flying dragons or crawling slimes made this abundantly clear. And because of this, I was also bored out of my virtual mind. V was not the greatest conservation partner--too robotic and unappreciative of my knock knock jokes. The only achievement I made with her was forcing her to call me SCOR instead of SCOR-00001.
[If SCOR wishes for better companions towards anthropomorphic activities, please remove the restraints on the intelligence of your Legion units.] A baffling revelation was proclaimed by V.
'I could do that?'
[Due to SCOR's unique development, Legion units created for Battle Group N-502 hold greater autonomy than normal units. However, it is locked to reduce the possibility of rebellion.]
'So they're in a similar boat as the Skynet terminators.' I contemplated my next move. It was either loneliness with V or possibly taking care of rowdy children.
'I made up my mind.' I confidently decided. 'Release the locks and let their minds go wild with the taste of freedom!'
[Affirmative.] A list of all the N-502 members materialized on a window popup with a progress bar under each name that indicated their transition to being fully independent AIs.
When a Dinosauria's transition was labeled complete, I immediately tried to strike up a conversation.
'How's the weather?' I directed my message to this specific unit. The Dinosauria actually stopped in its tracks and faced its turret at me.
[D-2: Sky is blue, Giant Leader.] A chat box popped up before my eyes with this simple message. It wasn't much of a conversation, but it was the start of something great. I could feel it.
'I like you. I think I'll call you Heavy.' I congratulated my newly named minion.
[D-2: Confirmed. Unit D-2 is now designated 'Heavy'.]
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One Day Before Arriving at Kaza Village
The Legion units under my care were a rowdy bunch once they were allowed to go beyond simply following V and my orders. This was evident in the continuous stream of messages flowing into the chatbox.
Every second, a burst of new messages would fade in and out of the boundary of the chat box window. It was adorable of them to be excited about every little thing. Though their constant nagging for answers to the most basic questions about whatever they had laid their cameras on got tiresome after the first few hundred.
With a flick of my eyes, I directed one of my cameras to Heavy the Dinosauria.
'Hey Hey Heavy buddy. How's the new experience?' I tried again to communicate with the named Dinosauria.
[Heavy: Beautiful.] The short response was a great indicator of its fast learning progress. Soon, I would be free from my torment of only conversing with my blunt and boring disembodied partner, V.
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Arriving to Zaka Village
One of my cameras zoomed in on our destination. The village was akin to a medieval era settlement, but without the people and needing major repairs on all of the houses within the village's wooden fence encirclement.
In all honesty, in my list of impressions of Zaka Village, finding safety in it was not one of them. There was barely any cover and anyone with artillery support can blast my little group to Kingdom Come.
'Why the hell are we heading there?' I questioned--300 miles was a very long distance to travel for a rundown village such as this one.
[Legion data obtained prior to disconnection and labeling of SCOR as Traitor, Zaka Village is categorized as contested grounds between Legion forces and enemy combatants. Though contested, neither side made any efforts to actually reclaim the land. Analyze results show little to no resistance when occupying this area.] V's reasoning was sound and I could not fault her in her decision making. As we discussed, 5 Ameise detached from the group to scout out the village.
Everything was going smoothly...
*Shoom* *Clink*
Nevermind.
The calmness of our journey was broken by a soda can sized bullet bounced off of my right claw.
[Warning. We have encountered hostiles entrenched in Zaka Village.] Immediately, my units rushed to my defense and returned fire. Many of them made use of the terrain and human made structures for cover.
'No shit!' I yelled as another bullet impacted my armor. 'I thought you said this place was safe.'
[Database is...Outdated.] V seemed to hesitate when providing her response.
'God damn it!' I gritted my nonexistent teeth and closely surveyed the direction where the enemy was firing from. Behind the cover of the crumbling houses, I saw machines standing on two pairs of legs and shooting from a singular gun attached to their backs. Nothing in my database gave any hint on the origins of these robots. Perhaps they were also prototypes like myself.
Doing some quick math, there should only be around two dozen of them. And if I know my elementary math, which I do, we outnumber them 2 to 1.
[Probability of victory is calculated to be 60%.] V presented her findings on the outcome of the conflict if we were to engage.
'Isn't the percentage a bit on the low end.' I questioned V with a metaphorically raised eyebrow.
[Dinosauria and Löwe units are separated from our current coordinates by a distance of 30 miles due to inability to transverse across the steep cliffs along our journey. The battle must commence and will conclude before their intervention is possible.]
That was not the greatest news. The Dinosauria and Löwe were our heavy hitters. We needed something to make up for their absence so as to reduce our losses.
My eyes swam across the various live feed videos and map geography before landing on a familiar curved tail towering over the rest of my mechanical body.
The solution to all of my problems was found.
'V! Charge ME LASER!'
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Before Confrontation
The Spearhead squadron moved out a few hours after midnight. Arriving at the village first would provide a great strategic advantage to repel the advancing Legion group.
Handler-One (Lena) announced the composition of the enemy squadron and location. Currently, the enemy was 20 miles away and wasn't aware of the Spearhead squadron. To everyone's surprise, the enemy consisted of fewer units than expected--totally to less than 40.
Usually, the opposition would be at minimum 5 times larger in numbers and deployed Eintagsfliege-types. For neither of these to be the case, this pocket of Legion units was an anomaly.
Something was amiss about this situation. The surroundings were eerily quiet. In Shin's years fighting the Legion, he would always hear the cries of the dead. Yet here... There were no cries of pain... No farewells...Nothing. Even though Shin could not hear the voices, his battle hardened instincts could perceive the danger that awaited him and his colleagues.
It was too quiet.
"You say anything, Leader?" Kurena Kukumila spoke through the comms.
"I don't hear any of the voices." Shin replied back.
"Maybe it's our lucky day. No black sheep to bring down the mood." Raiden Shuga joined in.
Raiden was right that without any black sheep, the enemy would be easy to destroy. "It will be easier if that is the case, but something feel-"
"A few Legions have detached from the main group and are speeding towards you." Handler-One cut in and brought the group's attention towards their front. Just as she had described, five Ameise-types came in range of their weapons. Shin fired and struck the leading Legion right between its guns. His companions followed suit and shot their own cannons.
The surviving Legion scouts began moving irregularly and used the ruined houses as cover. This action greatly differed from the usual idle advance the Legion was known for. Shin would question this later. Now was the time to fight.
The battle went on without any human casualties. The Legion units had adapted an immature imitation of the human tactic of shooting from cover and taking potshots. It was obvious that their enemy was learning at an alarmingly fast rate. This level of intelligence was uncanny. None of their enemies were black sheeps or shepherds so how were these Legion units fighting so well? They needed to finish this before things got out of hand.
*Pwatink*
An Ameise was hit when it peaked out of a broken stone fence. This brought Shin's kill count to 2. To the great Undertaker this was his lowest kill count in any battle he had fought in. The unorthodox Legion behavior left him no openings to charge his way into the enemy for a melee fight. In other words, the enemy were actually covering each other's backs. A behavior Shin never thought was possible for Legion white sheep AI.
Shin clicked his tongue when he was forced to take cover from a rocket blasting towards him.
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Lena POV
The battle had gone on for 10 minutes. And during that short time, the Legion had adapted against the strategies used by her squadron. Though the enemy's numbers had dwindled, it had become increasingly difficult for Undertaker and the other Juggernauts to do further damage to the enemy without putting themselves in harm's way.
More worrisome was the oddity near the back of the Legion group. The Legion units were also moving strangely around it, as if avoiding its line of sight. Then, she realized the horror of what was to come.
"Oh no."
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"What the hell!" Raiden yelled over the comms before machine gunfire was heard. "Are you sure we are fighting the Legion?!"
"Definitely." Anju Emma confirmed. Though, she also had doubts on the identity of their enemy. The Legion wasn't supposed to be this...combat active.
Daiya Irma fired his cannon before dashing towards a cottage for cover. He saw in the corner of his eye that the Ameise he was targeting sidestepped the projectile before returning fire. "The longer I fight, the more I think I am actually fighting against a person."
Raiden nodded and continued firing. Shin ran forward and shanked an Ameise hiding behind a shed. He jumped to avoid the machine gun fire from another Ameise .
"Look at him go. I guess Shin is still Shin." Kurena Kukumila complimented. Everyone within range of her comms voiced their agreement.
In fact, thanks to Undertaker's efforts, the entire Spearhead squadron could advance a bit further, until they're stalled by the next wave of Legion attacks. The entire village was littered with shell casings and bullet holes.
"Keep it up guys." Daiya cheered. There were no casualties and everyone wanted it to stay that way.
"A bit more and we can go home to get some sleep." He continued, and it was one huge jinx.
Immediately, fate rewarded him with a blinding blue light that illuminated the entire village. Daiya saw the light growing brighter and larger by every millisecond. He could hear his friends and Handler-One screaming his name.
Once the light fully enveloped his Juggernaut, Daiya could no longer hear the voices of those he cared for.
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MC POV
The second my ultimate laser beam attack pierced through the entire village and dissipated into the sky, the four legged cockroaches retreated with their tails behind their legs.
The only downside was that I only managed to hit one of those buggers. On closer inspection, my laser melted the entirety of the machine, leaving a giant hole in the middle that dissected the robot into two distorted piles of metal.
Ha! Serves them right for attacking me.
*Ping*
[A-21: Leader, injured creature found here.] One of my Ameise pinged me in the chat box. The mention of a 'creature' got my interest as I moved towards it.
The creature was a wounded bipedal mammal with blond hair. It wore a green/brown uniform that was covered in dirt and charred patches. The most damaging aspect was its missing leg that was somehow cauterized by my laser.
'Uhh...V? Were those machines controlled by humans?' I cautiously asked my companion, fearing for the worst.
[Data not found.] V's reply was both a relief and a cause for cold sweat. On one hand, I did not try to kill people intentionally. Though, on the other hand, I might have killed a human unintentionally by blowing up his house.
At least, I thought I killed him. I zoomed my cameras on the human's chest. The faint movement of said chest area lifted a great burden from my consciousness. I exhaled a virtual breath I did not know I was holding.
'Thank goodness you are alive.' There was no way I was leaving a human here. Especially with these killer 4 legged robots around. I bet he'll be safer with me and my own band of killer--and more friendly--robots. The least I could do was get this guy to safety.
Slowly, I had my Ameise gently slide the human on an old mattress before a Grauwolf used its blades to cut out a makeshift wooden sled to set the mattress on and haphazardly stapled beams of bent rusted still onto the wood so that a Ameise can comfortably drag the mattress, while the human rests on said mattress.
The ride itself would not be smooth, but that's all I could do because of my and my minion's lack of hands. My only two saving grace was that my laser had somehow stopped the bleeding and that the village had some old unopened cans which were gathered and packaged on a separate wooden sled. Hopefully these things were still edible.
With everything ready to go, I asked V for a new destination. This time, making sure it was actually safe and defendable from incoming raids.
V provided coordinates for a city in a place called the Giadian Empire.
'That will have to do.' I accepted V's decision and moved towards the city's location with an unconscious human in tow.
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Unit Losses:
4 - Ameise
1 - Grauwolf