They’re clearly a suspicious bunch, thought Anemone. They were wearing frilly clothes, entirely unsuited for battle. To top it off, the clothes were all black. That would have made sense at night, but provided no advantage now, during the middle of the day. Their black blindfolds also seemed fishy.
When her leader Rose had told them they would use “that bunch” as bait to blow away the Machines, Anemone had hesitated because there was the small possibility that they were allies. But Rose had made the right call. Using this group as a lure hadn’t bothered her at all.
“Who are you?” Rose asked calmly, but the dingy bunch replied aggressively.
“You wanna go, punk?”
The one carrying a rifle was obviously ready to fight, and the one with the crooked blindfold looked back at them with suspicion in her eyes.
“Please stop!”
The one that screamed the loudest was the naive one who had thanked them.
“We are your allies! We’re the newer models! The squadron name is YoRHa, I’m Attacker No. 2, and this is No. 4. That’s the Gunner No. 16, and Scanner No. 21. I don’t know—”
Anemone cut off the member that was allegedly called No. 2.
“We didn’t receive any report that such a squadron was coming.”
“Our mission was top secret, so I assume no one on Earth would know about us.”
“Hmmm top secret, eh?”
That was a smooth reply. If they declared it was “top secret,” they wouldn’t have to explain it. It was something Command would do. That was one reason why the resistance didn’t trust Command.
“If it’s top secret, then there wouldn’t be any problem in killing you now either.”
Anemone quickly slipped behind No. 21 and put a knife to her. I would only need two seconds to kill this sluggish tramp, she thought.
“Anemone!”
Anemone loosened her grip, following none other than Rose’s command. But not enough for her to return to her place.
“Stop it.”
“But …”
Even though Rose was her leader, she couldn’t accept the order. “Yeah,” said Lily, who agreed with Anemone.
“There’s a possibility that they’re humanoid Machines.”
Recently, the Machines had been evolving at an alarming rate. The lot had been evolving to meet the challenges of the war for two centuries, but the velocity at which they improved themselves had been surging as of late. As Lily had said, it wasn’t unthinkable for Machines to appear and take the form of androids.
“You! Don’t be a fool!”
No. 16 rushed at Lily. Before Anemone could attack, Shion stepped in front of Lily to protect her. If Shion were to be described by ancient terms, she had a “motherly” aspect to her.
“Stop it! Don’t touch her with your dirty hands!”
“What’d you say! You!”
“This will be interesting,” Dahlia quipped as she pulled out her sword. No. 16 pulled out her knife. Anemone could tell that though No. 16 was technically a gunner, she had considerable skill at close combat as well.
“Just stop!” Yet again, No. 2. In between a shriek and a cry, her voice carried rather far. She must’ve been desperate. Whether she was actually desperate or not, Anemone had no intention of listening to her. She was going to continue the fight.
“Dahlia, Anemone, don’t,” Rose interrupted.
“But, Rose …”
Before Anemone could object, Rose turned toward No. 2 and them.
“We don’t want to question you either. But …”
With her gaze still locked on the dingy group of four, Rose took a step back. Seeing that, Anemone could tell that Rose had not let her guard down either. She had probably held back Dahlia and her so that they could initiate a battle with better coordination if it was necessary. Anemone gripped her knife and waited for her next order.
“Recently there have been sightings of suspicious enemy activities. We can’t trust you, complete strangers, even if we wanted to. Even if what you said was true, and you are newer models, we don’t have the means of confirming that information.”
“What? Are you trying to negotiate?” No. 4 said in a joking tone, and flipped her palms up.
“Don’t move!”
“You too, stop acting so strange!”
“Whaat?!”
Dahlia and No. 16 started to argue.
“Please wait!”
No. 2 stepped between them. “Shut up!” yelled No. 16.
“Move! I’ll shoot you too!”
No. 16 was not bluffing. Even Anemone, who was technically an enemy, could tell. But it seemed that No. 2 could not. No. 2 suddenly started to reach for No. 16’s rifle.
Is this girl stupid? Anemone thought. She probably intended to stop No. 16 by force, but suddenly grabbing a rifle was a reckless move. If she did that …
A bullet fired. Anemone could see No. 16, her eyes wide, over No. 2’s shoulder. The bullet had grazed No. 2’s ear. A few of No. 2’s hairs were charred and shorter than before. If the shot had been a few millimeters off and to the side, No. 2’s ear would’ve been torn off. And if the shot had been a few millimeters off and down …
It grew quiet. Everyone had imagined what could have happened.
“We …” No. 2’s voice was trembling. “We were a group of sixteen. We were intercepted during our descent … our cancelers weren’t working. Everyone … was shot down … one after another …”
No. 2 stiffened up. At the moment, there were No. 2, No. 4, No. 16, and No. 21. The other twelve had died. It was a simple but devastating act of subtraction.
“We requested that our mission be scrubbed, but it wasn’t approved. We have no reinforcements either. Command told us to continue in our current state.”
“Us” probably referred to the four of them. This was not the first story they had heard of Command being unreasonable. But if this story was true, they were heartless. If it was true, that is.
“What we need right now are comrades! Please understand!”
“They’re desperate,” mumbled Erica. Sonia furrowed her brows.
“Are you saying that we’re similar, because we were both abandoned by the moon?”
The human board on the moon had for a long time been unavailable for communication. Anemone and her group had tried to contact them many times, but to no avail.
“So we’re in the same situation. All right. Everyone, lower your weapons.”
If it was the leader’s order, it was absolute. Anemone put away her knife. Dahlia clicked her tongue, and reluctantly sheathed her sword as well.
“We will hear you out. My name is Rose.”
Because of the old weapons they used, when Rose said, “We are a group of older android models.” None of the four looked surprised.
“We are survivors from the Eighth Descent Attack.”
This time, all four of them gasped. No wonder. It was a mission from two hundred years prior. Most likely before any of them had been created.
It was the largest descent attack ever assembled, with 160 androids deployed to Earth—ten times the number of No. 2’s original troop. Regardless, the enemy had outnumbered them, and the mission ended in failure. Since none of them returned, it was recorded that the whole squadron had been killed … in the database.
Some of it was true: they had descended, been surrounded by an overwhelming number of enemies, and their numbers had been slowly ground down by the enemies. But it was not total elimination. There were survivors. Anemone was one of them.
The survivors established the resistance, with Rose as the captain. They used completely different methods than those they had learned during training, and battled their way toward the creation of an Earthbound base. After that they prioritized the restoration of the transmission facility, and eventually made communication with the moon-side human board possible. Now they would be able to call for reinforcements, and even if it took time for them to arrive, the resistance could scavenge some materials to survive for a bit. Everyone felt relieved.
But there was no reply from Command. They adjusted their location and tested different frequencies during their multiple attempts to make contact. But Command persistently ignored every single attempt from Earth.
It eventually dawned on them that Command had no intention of saving the survivors left on Earth. They had been abandoned.
That said, they had to keep fighting. This was enemy territory. The moment they put down their weapons, they would be killed. They needed to fight to survive.
The battles dragged on, and the resistance was slowly driven into a corner. They lost numbers, one after another. In battle, in an accident, from chassis or cognitive malfunction—as well as via a weaponized logic virus unleashed by the enemy.
Rose, of course, would be moved by hearing that the group of four had been senselessly ordered to continue their mission. After all, Rose, as captain, was the one that had been tortured by overwhelming hopelessness and a doomed future.
That was why Anemone decided to stay wary of the group. It was always better to have at least one person on guard …