Nier Automata (Re)Birth Chapter 65

Chapter 65: The Siege of New Babylon (Part 2)

“Mom, please, I’m fine already, stop coddling me!” Alexander pleaded, glaring at A2.

“Your physical wounds may be healed, but your body still fragile after channeling so much maso!” A2 retorted, refusing to budge from her spot in front of the door, keeping her son trapped inside his room on the Bunker.

Several days had passed since the dragon had self-destructed and taken Gear Town with it. The burns on Alexander’s arms had healed up completely, but A2’s words were true.

Upon returning to the Bunker, the H-types had been horrified to discover that parts of Alexander’s body had started to break down. Bones had cracked, muscles torn, and blood vessels had ruptured. Worse, trying to channel maso again had resulted in searing pain to shoot through his head, and investigating had revealed micro-tears in his brain.

Casting spells would kill him if he tried it again. Emil and the Healers had been firm on this point. When could he start casting again? Nobody knew. It might be days, weeks, or even years before his body could stand to channel maso.

As a result, A2 and White had stuffed Alexander into his room and were babying him, refusing to let him leave while the siege was ongoing.

“Mom, please, I just want to go to the command center,” Alexander pleaded.

“You can receive all of the data from here,” A2 pointed out. “No need to leave your bed.”

“I’m getting tired of hearing that excuse,” Alexander growled.

“Son, you’re not like Emil,” A2 said softly. “He can safely channel all that power because his body is no longer human. It is artificial, like a POD. You, though? Your body… you need to stay safe and keep healing properly.”

Alexander scowled, before slumping helplessly onto the bed. “What about Blue, then? What about 7E and 23E? How can I avenge them if I’m stuck in here?”

The Machine Dragon had had a hidden trick hidden up it’s non-existent sleeves. The purple maso it used was somehow able to interfere with the data-uploads of a YoRHa unit!

If a YoRHa android was destroyed with purple maso, then it seemed to be able to trick the computers on the Bunker to begin deletion protocols, erasing the memory data of the androids stored on the local servers instead of downloading it into new bodies.

This had been what 13R had managed to do when she’d infiltrated the Bunker, her sabotage going unnoticed until the last minute. It meant that 7E and 23E were, for all intents and purposes, dead. They could possibly be restored using saved data from the servers on the moon, but there wasn’t any way to contact the lunar bases due to a series of cyber attacks Purple Athena was performing. For the moment, trying to get the two E-types back was impossible.

And he hated it. He hated being treated like an invalid, and he hated that Purple Athena had taken his friends from him. Blue was gone, 7E was gone, 23E was gone, and from the way things were going, he was afraid A2, 9S and Emil would be next.

“There will be no vengeance until you are fully healed, Alexander Spero!” A2 declared sharply.

‘Ah, she used my full name. She’s really pissed!’ he winced.

“Fine, I won’t do anything stupid,” Alexander muttered.

“I should hope so,” his mother huffed. “I understand your anger, though. I am also… angry.”

Alexander was pretty sure ‘angry’ was an understatement. She was going to go on a rampage and destroy as many Neo-Machines as possible as soon as she was able to do so. For now, though, she was keeping watch over him to make sure he couldn’t hurt himself further.

‘I should feel insulted mom and White feel the need to keep an eye on me like this, but I’d probably do the same,’ He thought to himself, shoulders slumping a bit.

After a bit of brooding, Alexander turned to the window in his room, staring outside at the surroundings. The Bunker was hovering above Neo-Babylon, and it had a good view of the battlefield and the approaching Neo-Machine armies.

“Can I at least visit the cafeteria to eat?” he asked hopefully.

“No. Your food will be brought to you as usual.”

Alexander clenched his hands in annoyance. Would he be stuck in here until the end of the war?

&&&&&

Four days later, and Alexander was having another check-up. Emil and 5H, the Healer assigned to personally oversee all of Alexander’s health related matters, were looking him over with magic and machines in a private room within the Bunker’s infirmary.

“MRI and CT scans look good,” 5H hummed to herself as she made notes on a chart. “Heart rate and blood pressure seem to be fine as well.”

“Bones are back in one piece. Muscles, too. It seems you’ve healed up a bit more. You’re well on your way to being fully recovered,” Emil said, the glow of maso fading from one of his staves as he finished scanning Alexander. A2 watched from the corner of the room, never taking her eyes off of either of them.

“So, I’m all better?” Alexander inquired, looking up at his ‘uncle.’

“Oh, no, far from it,” Emil scoffed. “You can handle some minor casting, but the damage was severe, Alexander. Nothing more complex than… I want to say a Celestial Spear, Shield, or Hammer spell.”

Alexander grimaced. Those spells were extremely basic. More complex than the lowest tier of maso bullets and lasers, but that wasn’t saying much. The spells Emil was giving him permission to use were just shaped maso constructs without any additional effects behind them.

The restrictions meant he couldn’t use telekinesis, astral projections, or Chronomancy. Nor would he be allowed to add elemental effects like fire of lightning, or even manipulation of the earth or gravity to his current repertoire.

Still, as much of a setback as this was, he let out a sigh before nodding in understanding. ‘I don’t want to tear my brain into chunky salsa, after all,’ he thought to himself.

“What’s the fighting like out there, Uncle Emil?” Alexander asked in a depressed tone.

“Bad,” Emil admitted, not mincing words. “Our reinforcements are being kept at bay by Purple Athena, while her own forces keep gathering.”

Alexander swore. In response, A2 raised a bar of soap menacingly.

“I did not teach you that particular curse,” she said, causing her son to swallow nervously. “Where did you hear it?”

“Aunt Jaqueline,” Alexander said, immediately throwing his eye-patch wearing aunt under the bus.

“Hmm. Seems she needs to be reminded about what is and is not acceptable to say around impressionable minds,” A2 said ominously.

Before she could leave to find the potty-mouthed gynoid, a beep rang out and the intercom system activated.

“Attention! Attention? Is this thing on?” Jaqueline’s voice came in through the speakers. “Hey! HEY! Alex! Get your ass over to the command center! I got something to show ya!”

“Well, you won’t have to look too hard to find her now,” Emil said with a weak chuckle as he glanced at A2 and Alexander.

“Let’s go, son,” A2 said darkly, her tone causing everyone else in the room to shudder in terror.

“You know the rules about hacking the Bunker’s intercom system,” White said, glowering at the unrepentant Resistance model who was leaning against the wall of the command center.

“Chill, White. This is important, I promise,” Jaqueline replied.

When the doors to the command center hissed open, Jaqueline looked over, grinning as she spotted Alexander, but her expression fell, becoming one of horror as soon as her eye landed on A2 who was standing next to him.

“You’ve been teaching Alexander bad words,” A2 declared darkly, and she raised the bar of soap threateningly.

“Oh, God, no!” Jaqueline exclaimed, scrambling back as A2 advanced menacingly towards her. “Not the soap again!”

She was unable to escape the A-type, and was soon sobbing on the ground, bubbles foaming out of her mouth. Nobody was giving her much sympathy, however. Teaching dirty things to the Last Human was a big no-no!

“Quit playing around and tell us why you had 9S hack the intercoms for you,” White demanded, glaring at the whimpering gynoid.

“Ugh! Blech! Fine! I’ve been analyzing the make-up of Purple Athena’s newly forged Network with 9S and a couple others, and it’s incredible,” Jaqueline stated with a shake of her head as she spat out the suds.

“Don’t praise the damn thing, give me options for shutting it down!” White demanded.

“We barely understood the last one, but this new one blows it out of the water,” the eye-patch wearing gynoid stated indignantly. “It’s a miracle and a testament to the skills of 9S and myself that we have anything usable at all!”

“Then what do you have?” Alexander asked, stepping in before the two could keep bickering like the jilted ex-lovers they were.

“Well, it’s crazy advanced. Based off of alien tech with a few modifications to account for the human stuff,” Jaqueline replied, turning away from the commander. “Perhaps the most insane part is how it has been modified to channel maso through the connection. Not sure how, exactly. Beyond that, though, Purpes can do basically everything the Red Girls and Adam and Eve could. She can send data in miliseconds to every unit under her control, and coordinate with a frightful speed.”

“We already know this,” White snapped. “What do you have that is new?”

“There is a hard-limit to the amount of maso that can be sent through the Network,” Jaqueline revealed. “The repair spell is basically the extent of it. Sure, she could build Neo-Machines specifically to cast different spells, sorta like PODs, but with the maso for the spells provided for them by Purple Athena herself. But we’re not sure something like that would be able to mesh well. A spell-casting Neo-Machine wouldn’t be able to be repaired if damaged is what I’m saying.”

“That’s some good news, but she doesn’t need to use spells,” A2 pointed out.

“True,” Jaqueline conceded. “Something else we’ve figured out is that there maybe a limit to the amount of Neo-Machines she can control at once. No more than one billion units. The Network is impressive but not flexible enough to handle more than that.”

“Interesting, but again, not much we can work with right now,” White muttered. “We’re already badly outnumbered, and Purple Athena doesn’t have more than a hundred million Neo-Machines at current estimate.”

“There is a small silver lining to all of this investigation, though,” Jaqueline claimed, causing White, A2, and Alexander to look at her in disbelief.

“And that would be?” White asked incredulously.

“9S has discovered that if the Network goes down, so too do the Neo-Machines. And Purple Athena is now the lynch pin of the Neo-Machine Network. She’s effectively become a Red Girl, but with a physical body,” Jaqueline explained.

“What about the whole mind-swapping thing, though?” Alexander inquired, recalling that aspect of his uncle’s report regarding what Purple Athena could do after Blue had been kidnapped. “Wouldn’t she just be able to avoid death by gaining a new body?”

“Oh, absolutely, but only if she has time to do so. Destroying her abruptly without giving her a chance to offload her data into another body will cause a fragmentation effect. And if her main body is destroyed and her mind ends up breaking apart, it will become scattered across all of the units connected with her,” the gynoid formerly known as Jackass revealed with a vicious smirk. “That will effectively be the same as outright death because Purple Athena is too big, data-wise. Her code is far more complex and ‘dense’ than anything her standard Neo-Machines are capable of processing. It will be like trying to download a terabyte of raw data onto a device that can only hold a megabyte’s worth. It won’t work, and will probably cause a bunch of problems.”

Jaqueline’s smile then turned absolutely feral. “Add in the fact that if her mind breaks, the Network would go down with her, which would trap all of these ‘pieces’ of Purple Athena’s mind inside Neo-Machines that will shut down all at once seconds later, preventing her from reforming her data without an active connection.”

“There’s absolutely no chance of her recovering, then?” White inquired sharply.

“The only way Purple Athena could possibly restore herself would be if somebody downloaded the data from each and every Neo-Machine that shut down across the world and then uploaded all of this scrambled data into a single server, then spent countless years piecing her back together by combing through each and every scrapped line of code and extracting only the pieces of data that were hers,” Jaqueline explained. “It’d be like trying to put together a million-piece puzzle, except each piece is mixed in with a million other puzzle pieces from different puzzle sets.”

White slowly nodded her head in understanding, a faint glimmer of hope in her eyes, while Alexander broke out into a smile.

“Then, there’s a chance to defeat her!” he exclaimed happily.

“Destroy the body, and her mind will fracture,” White muttered, repeating what her old lover had said, just in a form that was easier to understand. “Her control over her Neo-Machines will crumble as well. She’s become her own worst enemy, in a sense.”

“Precisely,” Jaqueline nodded. “Of course, destroying her is easier said than done. And she could theoretically restore herself with maso energy before the Network shuts down if she could time it just right. But the possibility is indeed there.”

“We now have a clear method to ending this war,” White said, a rare smile creeping across her features.

“Problem is we have no idea where she is,” A2 pointed out, putting a damper on the hopeful mood.

“We believe she is in the ruins of Tokyo,” White revealed, turning to a holo-screen. “The Bunker has detected an enormous amount of raw data flowing into a part of the ruined city. It’s deep within Purple Athena’s territory, and deep enough underground we couldn’t destroy her with orbital strikes without accidentally causing an earthquake or volcanic eruption in the process.”

“Ah, yes, that would be a problem,” A2 muttered. “What about a strike team? Could we send something like that in?”

“Perhaps, but we’d need some way to distract her so she doesn’t notice. And her Neo-Machine patrols are extremely thorough in the region,” the commander replied.

As White, A2, and Jaquline discussed ways to find a way to reach Purple Athena’s main body, Alexander stared at the map, not really looking at it. His mind was whirling with a crazy idea. But one that just might work.

“I’ll do it,” Alexander said aloud, silencing the command center.

“What did you say?” A2 asked, turning to her son in bewilderment.

“I’ll do it. I’ll kill Purple Athena,” he repeated firmly.

“And how will you get to her?” Jaqueline asked, curious.

“Easy, I’ll challenge her to a duel,” Alexander declared.

“This isn’t a storybook or movie, Alexander,” White chided. “In real life, battle does not end with a climactic duel between the two leaders of the armies.”

“True, but Purple is a, how can I put this… she’s a romantic with a flair for the dramatic,” Alexander claimed. “She puts more faith into the legends of humanity than their history. So, if I make her the offer to meet me in a duel, she’ll accept, if only because it is how things go down in the tales and fables. Heck, she’ll probably leave her base just to do that if I call her out for any reason.”

“It’s an insane risk!” YoRHa’s commander stated, and the other androids present nodded in agreement.

“It is! But you know what’s even riskier? Letting her armies bash themselves against our walls over and over until we break! She’s launching assaults on our trench lines and lobbing artillery shells at us every hour on the hour and our defenses won’t last! Not with her magic being able to repair any and all damage we do to her forces! And if she breaks through, you know what she’s going to do. Where she is going to go.”

White’s gaze flickered towards the holographic image of New Babylon, and then to the secret underground vault beneath the city, where all of the children of humanity left on Earth were being kept. They were young, innocent, and completely helpless if the waves of machines got to them.

Alexander did not want to believe that Purple would harm them, but he knew she wasn’t above using a hostage situation to her advantage.

“…Are you sure?” White asked after a long, tense pause in the command room, the ears of the Operator-types straining to catch her quiet, scared voice. A2 looked from her son to the commander, a scowl on her face, but she said nothing. Jaqueline merely looked intrigued.

“I am. This is the only way to seize victory at this point,” Alexander declared.

White scowled at the options, but a quick glance at the flickering holograms displaying the losses the android forces were taking from Purple Athena’s endless army were not good at all. Even with the Resistance forces backing them up, and all available units being recalled to defend the Bunker and the city, they didn’t have much time or resources left.

In the end, the commander ran a hand over her face, an expression of regret flickering over it, before she steeled her expression into a neutral mask and nodded at Alexander.

She input a few commands onto the console, then stepped aside as a microphone emerged.

Taking her silence as permission, Alexander stepped up and leaned in towards the microphone.

“This is Alexander Spero, First and Last of Humanity,” he said with a firm voice. “I, as the representative and leader of humanity, androids and free Machines, issue a challenge to Purple Athena, ‘Goddess’ of the New Machine Empire. Duel me, one on one, for the right to see who is a worthier ruler of the new world order. If you win, I shall order my forces to stand down and will marry you as your ‘king.’ But if I should win, you must agree to cease all hostilities against us!”

His challenge was broadcast across speakers connected all throughout the Bunker and New Babylon, causing the battle outside to instantly grind to a halt out of sheer disbelief on both sides.

The Neo-Machines were controlled directly by Purple Athena, and she had heard Alexander’s words just as everyone else had through her servant’s ‘ears.’ In response, the Neo-Machines began to withdraw, leaving the battlefield and lining up in neat orderly formations outside the city’s walls and trenches.

Then, a whirlwind of purple energy erupted from a spot between the New Machine army and the defenders of New Babylon. From it emerged Purple Athena’s humanoid body, along with Blue’s body and the traitorous 13R by her side, the three of them striding forth past their legions, but stopping short just shy of No Man’s Land and the extreme range of the city’s artillery.

“I have heard your offer, Alexander, and I accept!” Purple Athena called out, expression gleeful and her voice magnified by magic so it was heard by the entire city. “Let the fate of the mortals be decided by a duel between gods!”

Alexander grimaced at the way she’d put it, but nodded all the same before turning on his heels and heading towards the lift to take him from the lower levels of the command center to the upper levels.

“Alexander!” A2 called out to him, and he paused, turning back to face his mother.

“Win,” she ordered, then saluted him. “Glory to Mankind.”

“Glory to Mankind!” the rest of the YoRHa androids echoed, their voices filled with hope and faith.

“Glory to us all,” Alexander replied as the lift rose. He then steeled his nerves and put on his war face. It was time to end this, once and for all.