E-UNIT: The Blue Angels of Death.

V O L U M E . S E V E N - P H A N T O M S . A N D . P R E D A T O R S

02 moved in slow, calculated steps, each one bringing her closer to something her sensors were registering but her processing refused to accept. Her eyes never left what remained of 24. Her hands were shaking, the first time that had ever happened.

She got closer, and each step gave her something she hadn't wanted to see.

24's neck was half cut. Her blue hair had been painted over with cheap paint. The facial sensors had been removed by force, the scratches still fresh, denting the white surface they'd been torn from. Some of her plating had cracked open, some pulled away entirely, exposing the machinery beneath. Her clothes had been stripped from her and she had been hung from the wall by her wrists.

The hands barely held their shape, cables were the only thing keeping them attached to the arms. One eye cycled between on and off. The other was simply gone. A cheap charger had been connected to her to keep her conscious. A small pool of blue liquid had formed beneath her, still fading, proving it was recent.

Her head tried to lift. It managed just enough to find 02's face. Half of her mouth formed half a smile. Energy tears traced down her face along old channels, worn into the plating by repetition.

02 went to her knees.

Her mouth wouldn't close. Her eyes, usually sharp, usually the thing that made people look away, were wide, pulling in every detail, unable to process the sum of them. She brought her arms around 24 with a gentleness that was almost frightening, the kind of care that fears breaking something that is already broken.

03 turned to the wall. Her body made the motion of vomiting with nothing to produce, fighting a ghost stomach.

Infinity was somewhere else in her own head, but her mouth read the thoughts aloud anyway. "Why did Chrome go this far? She's a standard E-UNIT, extracting her SSD would have been sufficient—" She stopped. Her head came down.

Blue energy tears fell from her eyes in a continuous stream. She looked at her fingers where one had crossed the trail. The blue faded before she could close her fist. "Since when can we cry?" Her legs gave and she sat on the floor.

03 finished the phantom vomiting and turned. "Why are you crying? You don't know her."

Infinity looked slowly toward 02. "It's not me. It's coming through the link."

03 sat beside her, spent from the effort of not looking at 24. "She's using you to hold herself together while she keeps the outside face intact. That's the 02 I told Gamma about. I've always wondered what she's actually hiding underneath that."

"Why aren't you more affected? That's your sister in there."

"I am." 03 removed the Bulwark helmet. "But I won't interrupt what's happening right now. She surfaces rarely. You understand that by now." She paused. "Was the torture necessary?"

Infinity looked at 02, still motionless, still holding 24. "Not at all. I want to know the same thing. Lord Reaper has always opposed physical methods, that's why he gave Obsidian the mercy order when your team was being dismantled."

"You say that very casually."

"Changing my tone wouldn't change what happened."

"True." 03 covered her face. "Sorry. My sensors are doing something."

'She didn't even try to make the excuse convincing. I don't blame her.' Infinity held the thought. The warmth of a smile reached her face for half a second before the feeling coming through the link pulled it back down. "I've never felt anything like that from her before. Is that why she's not moving?"

"I'd know if you'd show me how to connect."

"02 would leave me in 24's condition if I did."

"She wouldn't." 03's eyes stayed on 24. "She only hurts people she genuinely hates. Which means Obsidian, and that's about the end of the list."

03 put the helmet back on and opened the comms rather than crossing the room. "Captain. We need to move. Esoptron has reported us by now, and Gamma is still outside. For her safety."

A notification came back.

[In her current state?]

"What do you mean?"

[Her hands are secured inside the cuffs. Freeing her without further damage isn't possible.]

"What are our options?"

Infinity lowered her head. "I know what she's thinking." She looked at 03 quietly. "A mercy kill."

03 stood so fast her chair would have moved if there'd been one. "No!" She crossed to 02 and pushed her back, then went still as 24's full state hit her at close range. Her eyes moved across what was visible, part by part, trying to assemble a recognition that kept failing.

02 spoke without force behind the words. "She gets a new frame. It ends what she's experiencing right now. Every second we wait extends it."

03 held the exchange of looks, 02, then 24, then 02 again. Then she turned toward the door. "Tell me when it's done. I'll be in the hallway." She stepped out and pulled the door closed.

02 looked at 24 for a long moment. "I'm sorry it took this long. I was deceived by someone wearing your face, and I didn't look closely enough at the gaps." She touched the broken plating gently. "I fell for it."

24 tried to form words. Her mouth wouldn't cooperate. 02 opened the link, 24's reaction was nearly violent, the pain from the connection almost dropping 02 where she stood. She held on. "Use the message window."

[I missed you, captain.]

"I missed you too. I came all the way here to—"

[I know. Since when can you get into our heads like this? It's extremely unsettling.]

02 smiled, holding the broken face in her hands. "It's always been possible."

[So now you're after 05's title. Surveillance State, second chair.]

02 laughed, real, brief. "I won't even come close. She's in a category of her own."

[You're not bringing me out of here looking like this. I need to have some dignity left when the others see me.]

"You always looked good. Even now."

[That's what mothers say to ugly children to spare them the truth. I feel pathetic. Thank you for confirming it.]

02 laughed harder. Then her expression settled into something that didn't have a name. "Forgive me in advance."

[For saving me? Do it. I'll be more grateful than I've ever been for anything.]

02 stood slowly. She reached behind her and drew the blade, settling it at 24's shoulder. "Tell the others I'm on my way."

[They already know. I won't bother.]

Infinity covered her eyes. 03, in the hallway, covered her audio sensors.

Sleek.

The system announced it in a cold, indifferent voice, as if it had noted nothing more than a dropped connection:

[E-UNIT 24 has disconnected from the link. Please verify your connection.]

02 turned to the door. Her eyes burned blue. Infinity stood in the doorway and lowered her head as 02 passed, blade still in hand, she took another look at the 24’s dead body, then moved on.

The cell moved through the hospital corridors in silence. 02's steps were wide and even. An Esoptron copy appeared at the far end of a hallway. She slashed the air beside her without changing pace. The copy fell.

"Captain." Infinity opened a screen beside her. "The Esoptron control room is through the door where the copy came from."

"Don't call me that. I'm not your captain."

"You're still on that?"

02 turned suddenly. Infinity flinched. "I'm done with this performance of a sanctuary. What does it mean to promise every robot freedom and then torture the first one who doesn't comply? How does that make Elysium different from the human nations it replaced?"

"That wasn't father!" Infinity stepped forward. "He would never authorize that. It was someone underneath him acting without—"

"If he can't govern a single subordinate, he should have thought harder before putting a country under his name." 02 turned back and kept walking.

Infinity followed. "He's running a nation of millions in its first year. He can't trace every individual action—"

"So you're defending his choices."

They reached the control room. Infinity stopped at the door. "Not anymore."

02 went in without pausing. The room was empty except for the machine at its center, a large circular server, the original Esoptron body connected to it by hundreds of cables, the void face finally not empty. The orange crystal floated in the cavity at its center, calm and unhurried, as if none of this involved it.

02 reached in and took it carefully. "You won't be misused again." She turned and left without looking back.

Esoptron's body remained connected to the server, motionless.

03 tilted her head at the body. "Are you not going to—"

"He's for you. I know you need somewhere to put it." 02 looked at her. "Infinity, give her a minute."

02 and Infinity left. 03 stood alone facing the faceless body. She reached behind her and set the shield aside.

"She knows me well. Let's begin." She cracked her metallic knuckles.

Infinity caught up to 02 in the corridor. "What happens now? We hand the crystals to Gamma?"

"Stop presenting yourself as part of this."

"I am part of it!" The volume came up fast.

02 stopped at the hospital entrance and looked at her. "You genuinely have no self-preservation instinct. You're pleading with someone who wants you gone."

"I don't care." Infinity stepped between 02 and the glass doors. "How many times do I need to prove it? I kept Pi from you and I'm sorry, I am genuinely sorry. But with your help I have seen what our side actually does." She took 02's hand. "I've watched how you treated me compared to how they treated 24. You held me on your shoulders while you fought the Mecha-worms. Wanting to join you is the logical conclusion of everything I've seen."

"Join me?"

"Yes. Was that not clear? I hate it there. Father used me as a data collection instrument and pointed me at you. You have never once done that." Infinity looked away. "And being near the Omega crystal has been, it's been something I don't have a word for yet."

02 studied her for a long moment.

Then a green light came through the glass. Strong, strong enough to turn the hospital's sterile white interior a deep lime. Both of them snapped toward it.

Shelly landed outside in the DIABOLOS suit, the green energy surrounding her without heat, everything it touched turning luminous. The asphalt beneath her boots hissed and simply ceased to exist, the matter quietly deleting itself wherever the green fire touched. Her silhouette looked less like a machine and more like a tear in the fabric of the night.

03 emerged from the control room corridor at the same moment Gamma appeared at the side entrance, both having registered the light from outside.

02 turned to Gamma and took her hand, pressing the grey and orange crystals into it. "Get them to safety. Nobody alive has half your speed, run and don't look back."

Gamma took them without hesitation and sealed them into a white protective case. "Be careful, Captain. The green crystal dissolves matter without heat. There's no warning and no heat signature."

"I know what I'm doing." The smile was brief but real. "Make sure our sisters come back."

Gamma took the back exit at speed.

02 opened her HUD and connected 03. "Both of you fully charged before this starts. Find cover outside the link range but clear of the building, I don't know what the fight does to the structure." She glanced at Infinity. "Go with her."

Infinity crossed her arms. "Control me out."

02 reached over and tapped the top of her head. "I don't take autonomy from my sisters."

Infinity went still. "Does that mean—"

03 grabbed her by the arm and started pulling. "Yes it does, no she doesn't need to spell it out, keep moving. You girls look at each other like a married couple that remembered that they love each other . While we find cover, I'll tell you things about the captain that she will absolutely regret you knowing. There's a specific incident from her early training that—"

Their voices went down the corridor and faded.

The last trace of 02's expression left with them.

She stepped through the glass doors and walked out to a measured distance from where Shelly stood, the green fire circling her in quiet arcs, the color of it painting everything in the night.

02 reached behind her.

Both blades came out in the same slow, deliberate motion. The sound of them was the only thing in the air.

"Code Red. Initiated."

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